


Conquered

by Azaelea



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: Comfort, Dark, Doubt, Espionage, Family, First Time, Friendship, Hogan's lost, Homesickness, Hurt, It get a little sad, It's kinda long, Loss, Love, M/M, Missions, Newkirk's stubborn, Realisations, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Suffering, UST, War Themes, World War II, actually now i think about it its a lot of violence, battles, but its fine, happiness, lots and lots of UST, so much UST, some violence, the UST won't turn up till later though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azaelea/pseuds/Azaelea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in the middle of the war the most dangerous espionage team can pop up, and, somehow, through it all, hope and even love can blossom - because why should Colonel Robert E. Hogan ever do anything the normal way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Some Say Love

**_Chapter 1 – Some say love_ **

_Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed._

_Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed_

_Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need_

_I say love, it is a flower and you, it's only seed_

-  _The Rose, Bette Midler_

Peter Newkirk stared across the compound, looking at his new commanding officer, a Colonel Robert E. Hogan.

He patted Corporal Louis LeBeau on the shoulder and laughed, obviously ribbing the Frenchman, silhouetted against the white ground and harsh barbed wire, and his dark eyes glanced up briefly, towards barracks 2. Newkirk's own blue eyes widened as the colonel winked at him, making him part of the joke, before returning to the conversation at hand.

_Bloody 'ell. An officer with a sense of humour. Impossible._

Still, the Englishman allowed a small smile to flit across his face, as his hands habitually shuffled a deck of well-worn cards, leaning against their Barracks, his legs crossed at his ankles, his cap pushing his dark hair into his eyes,

_Worth giving him a shot, I suppose._

The colonel had arrived two weeks ago, shot down not more than a couple of miles from camp, and he was taken into the  _Kommandantur_ and left, smiling, ten minutes later.

He walked over to where he had been instructed to go, Barracks 2, and Newkirk and LeBeau had exchanged a glance, peeking from the dirty windows of their hut, realising they were going to have to be on better behaviour with a new commanding officer taking the little office off to the side.

He walked with confidence, taking in the new camp around him, scanning the prisoners, out for their daily exercise. Brown hair was messy, falling into his eyes, his crush cap at a slight angle, its eagle glinting in the weak sunlight. The brown leather jacket looked loved and well worn, the pants tailored to fit his well-built form. The colonel didn't stop out there though, he kept walking and before Newkirk knew it, he was in Barracks 2, and silence fell.

"Good morning," the colonel said and received mumbled replies in return, "don't let me stop you," he added, devil-may-care grin firmly in place, motioning to the activities the men had been doing before, ranging from commenting on their latest pin up girl to playing cards.

The men followed his instructions as asked, not being in charge, therefore not willing to introduce themselves to the new officer, happy to wait for their previous commander to do it for them. Newkirk glanced at Louis, who shrugged as if saying,  _another day, another officer, mon frère,_ and Newkirk sighed, rolled his eyes and then moved himself up onto his bunk.

For some reason this caught the Colonel's attention and he turned bright eyes onto the English corporal, "Colonel Hogan," he said, holding his hand out and for a moment Newkirk was lost. Officers don't shake hands with corporals. This one seemed to want to though, and Newkirk realised he must look like a right fool with his mouth hanging open, staring at the colonel,

"C-Corporal Peter Newkirk, RAF, sir," he replied, managing to get his hand out and make the colonel smile, narrowing his eyes when he heard Louis make a sound like a laugh which was covered up by a cough. The colonel turned to the French man and held his hand out, " _Bonjour_  Corporal," he said and Louis grinned back, despite the terrible accent,

"Corporal Louis LeBeau, Free French, sir," he said, thinking that maybe this commander wouldn't be so bad after all,

"Nice to meet you,"

They turned as the barracks door opened to admit their previous highest ranked NCO, "You must be Sergeant James Kinchloe," The colonel said, extending his hand again, forgoing the salute. Newkirk was pleased to see the ever stoic black man was outwardly astounded at this show of equality from the colonel and he took his hand,

"Please, sir, call me Kinch," he replied and Newkirk decided to pipe up with,

"He must like you, it took me a month to get 'im to let me call 'im that," he said and found himself looking back into eyes amused at the snort from the sergeant.

From there things seemed to happen very fast. Within days the colonel had shown himself to be a competent and, of all things, a caring leader. He had already learnt the names of everyone in their barracks and was progressing through the other barracks too. He was fair in breaking up scuffles and much to everyone's surprise and to some idiot's disgust, he was neither prejudiced nor was he racist.

Newkirk found himself keeping track of all these things. Somehow, he, Louis and Kinch were the ones Hogan had taken to the most, relying on them for information about the camp, asking for their advice on where to place a troublesome prisoner.

It was a four weeks after he had settled in, two weeks after the  _winking incident_ as Newkirk was wont to call it in his head, when he had called the three of them into his private quarters. He begun by asking them how long they'd been together. Then he proposed the most ridiculous thing Newkirk had ever heard in his life.

Would they, he asked, be interested in running an underground espionage unit right out of their home away from home? He went on to mention that he had been sent here, not accidentally shot down. That he had chosen the three of them specifically for their skills and their aptitude.

_Not bloody likely, mate,_ was Newkirk's mental response. He nearly said it out loud too, having never had much love for any form of authority or for officer's penchants for getting men killed, when Hogan then said it was voluntary, and he would understand if they said no.

LeBeau looked to Kinch who turned to Newkirk. The RAF corporal's eyes were sapphires, glinting in the night as they widened, realising that his mates were actually considering it.

"Er, well," he managed,  _oh very smooth, Peter,_ and it didn't help when Hogan chuckled, his hat falling slightly crooked as he walked to the bed and sat down, stretching out and looking at them, waiting for their reply.

Newkirk scanned the room, noting that LeBeau had a thoughtful look on his face and Kinch looked like he had already made up his mind and as he turned towards the others, the English corporal felt Hogan's gaze on him, as if the Colonel could hear his turbulent thoughts.

Unsurprisingly, it was Louis who replied first, "Colonel,"" he paused, "I have known you only short while, but I feel as if I would not mind being shot with you, because this isn't going to work, but it's better than sitting around here," he finished and there was that grin again, Newkirk thought, directed squarely at LeBeau. Big, and disarming, the colonel turned it on Kinch, who nodded,

"We're here to fight the German's aren't we? Let's do this together," the sergeant stated, and then everyone was looking at Newkirk.

"Well?" Louis asked, the little Frenchman's face alight with the possibility of mischief, because honestly, Newkirk thought, LeBeau was at heart a child, a lover and a passionate man. He should never have been dragged into this war,

"Well what?" the English corporal snapped back, feeling the pressure, always particularly snappy when he didn't know what to think. When these feelings –  _inclusiveness, importance, friendship, camaraderie_ – were all pushing for attention and he simply didn't have the ability to deal with them all at once.

He never even wanted to be here in the first place. He wasn't cut out for taking orders and every CO he'd ever had made sure that he knew his place. So what if he was struggling to understand this new officer. So what if every time Hogan so much as looked at him he felt, for possibly the first time in his life, a need to meet the expectation in those eyes. A need to actually do something for someone else who wasn't his family. A desire to show the Colonel that he could do his part. And maybe it terrified him at the speed at which Hogan's approval had taken such precedence for him.

"You can say no," the colonel reminded him softly, "and the only thing I would ask of you then is your discretion," but Newkirk almost felt more than heard something else in the colonel's voice.

Something there that was almost –  _challenging_  him. A siren call, tempting him into the dangerous. Into the unknown. Dark eyes that may as well have been the dark clouds above the Thames with the Blitz not far off. Newkirk could feel himself being drawn in and the words were out of his mouth before his mind could fully catch up,

"I'm in,"

The colonel lit up like a Christmas tree and Louis hugged him from the side, Kinch grinning at the corporal as if maybe, if they worked together, they wouldn't be dead before Christmas.

* * *

It was four months since that fateful day and now, they had a tunnel system beneath the camp so vast, Newkirk couldn't believe it. Kinch had his own radio area. LeBeau had a place for extra cooking ingredients. Newkirk had a tailor's area set up, and they had contact with London.

They had turned from a stagnant, pointless German prisoner of war camp into a transfer and escape processing centre and even now, down below, there were downed fliers going through tomorrow and most amazingly, Newkirk reflected, he, LeBeau, Kinch, Hogan – they were all still alive and there was only one reason for that.

Their colonel was brilliant.  _Daft, but brilliant_ , Newkirk chuckled to himself in the tunnel, working on the suit jacket he needed to have done by the end of tomorrow.

He was everything they needed – kind, compassionate, creative, unorthodox.

Newkirk felt himself flush slightly as he caught himself thinking of the colonel  _again_.  _This 'as got to be unhealthy, Peter._  He felt utterly inadequate around Hogan sometimes. He caught himself just watching the colonel think their plans through. Brown eyes liquid, the mind behind them turning, twisting, and always plotting. And if Newkirk found himself trusting the colonel more and more, it was only natural, he decided. So what if it took a year for him to get anywhere near as comfortable with LeBeau and Kinch. The colonel was a charmer. Not that the corporal had been charmed, per se. More just –  _aw, you're fooling no-one Peter._

And if Newkirk thought that the colonel might feel just as comfortable around him too, he quickly brushed those thoughts away. He wasn't so full of himself to think an officer of Hogan's calibre would actually consider him an equal, a friend.  _You're useful Peter. And as long as you stay that way, he'll keep you around._

Because hoping for any more would be beyond any of the luck Newkirk's ever had in his life and there really was no point in getting all wound up about something only to be brought crashing back down to reality. Too many disappointments in his life left the corporal sceptical about any such true happiness.

* * *

Five months in and Hogan found himself almost at home on the ratty old mattress in the tiny room that was his. Outside he could hear his men. If anyone had told him that this would be his role in the war, he would have laughed at them. He was a pilot. He was not made for sneaking and lying and espionage.

Yet here he was, with his own unique team of three and if he had it his way today, it would be four, the additions of a munitions man he could trust all they needed to really get this thing of theirs moving,

"Sergeant Andrew Carter, reporting as ordered, sir," the man,  _boy, Rob. He's just a boy_ , entered the room, his hat in his hands, his jacket battered over a still more damaged looking jumpsuit.

The colonel absorbed this information as the young sergeant stood, his blond hair falling into baby blue eyes. They weren't as brilliantly blue or fiery as Newkirk's but they were still a frightening shade of blue.

_And just why do you remember the exact shade of Newkirk's eyes?_  The colonel shook that thought away.  _Unique, that's all. Rare shade._

Carter was briefed and within a week, like an excited puppy, he joined their ragtag team.

Now, Hogan watched from his door frame as Newkirk alternated between exasperated and amused with Carter and how LeBeau was making sure the too thin boy was eating and how Kinch took to Carter's earnest smile almost immediately as the young American settled into the camp.

_I can't believe they're really mine_ , he thought, watching as Carter won gin again, and Kinch threw down his cards in disgust as the other men laughed heartily and then that was when it happened. As the colonel stood there, his hands tucked securely into his pockets, he suddenly found his heart doing something very odd, likely a result of too much stress, he figured, because what was the alternative?

Newkirk glanced up through his eyelashes, as if out of habit, towards the Colonel's cabin, and the colonel was glad he was there this time, if this was something that happened often, to catch the flash of blue and the hint of a smile, before it was hidden again by a lock of dark hair falling over the corporal's face.

Then he realised he had been standing there and smiling slightly for far too long. He shook himself and turned around, back into his office to plan how to get the next lot of fliers off to London.

They were definitely his now, and he was going to try his best to protect them.

It would seem he would also need to try his best not to let nostalgia  _or any other odd emotions_  get to him either.

* * *

Another month was gone and the Heroes were really a swinging underground unit. Night after night downed fliers kept coming in, and London kept up the praise. Kinch reported to a thoroughly amused barracks, and a completely embarrassed Hogan, that they were now known as Hogan's Heroes.

"And they 'ad bloody well remember it!" Newkirk added, throwing an arm around his CO, to much clapping from the assembled of Barracks 2.

"Alright, alright," Hogan held his hands up to silence the men, "we've done well. We really have," this was met by more cheers, more muted than they normally would be, cautious of attracting the attention of their jolly guard, Shultz, " _but,"_ he continued, "tonight is going to be the real defining moment of this unit,"

Newkirk felt his belly do a backflip as the Colonel reminded him of their latest mission. The looks on the other's faces told him that he was not the only one. Carter seemed to swallow reflexively, as if thinking about the bombs waiting downstairs. LeBeau was looking directly at the English corporal and the corner of his mouth turned up, but it was belayed by the tension in his shoulders. Kinch was as unresponsive as ever on the outside, but after a year and a half together, Newkirk was able to see the tight set of the sergeant's jaw, letting him know that he was definitely not alone in his anticipation.

London had sent word that there was an anti-aircraft unit about three miles from where they were, doing serious damage to their squadrons and asked them if they could do something about it. The colonel said yes. The men said he was mad. Then they heard the plan.

Hogan ordered Carter to make three time bombs, each with a timer of thirteen hours. It would be timed with the arrival of a bomber squadron from England, so it will appear that one of the planes destroyed the unit. They were to 'borrow' a truck from the motor pool, and, dressed as Gestapo, led by Captain Hoganmeyer, they were going to deliver a very special wine casket. Placed directly under the wine cellar as indicated by the underground on the maps they managed to acquire, it would knock out communication first and then start a chain reaction with the ammunition in the house just next door, taking the entire site with it.

It was so unlikely, it had to work, figured Newkirk. The corporal took a moment to just look at his colonel, jacket off, standing amidst them as he went over the plan one more time. Newkirk was to be with the Colonel tonight, and, though he hated himself for it, he was hoping that he could show the American that he  _was_  worth the trouble. That he was more than a thief and a pickpocket. Newkirk had a feeling he should give a bit more thought as to why he was so desperate for this approval, this acquirement of Hogan's praise and attention, but then the Colonel was looking at him and asking him to repeat their part,

"Er, right sir," he said, getting to his feet, pulling his long blue greatcoat closer around him, "you an' me, we're going to be the officers, leading these three," he pointed to Carter, Kinch and LeBeau, "into the compound," Hogan nodded, "once we're in, I'll order them to take us to the cellar, we have an important delivery for General Himmer, and that it must be placed in the cellar by us and only us,"

"Good, then what?" the Colonel asked, pacing his customary route in front of the single table within the slightly overcrowded hut,

"Then carter sets the charges once we get the boxes in the right underground room, an' then we get the 'ell out of there," Newkirk finished,

"Alright excellent," Hogan said, clapping Newkirk on the shoulder, just as Shultz swung the door open, announcing,

"Roll call!  _Raus! Mach schnell! Raus, Raus!"_

The customary grumbles were targeted at the fat sergeant, and Newkirk rolled his eyes as Shultz kept yelling, pushing him a little as he walked past and out into the  _bloody freezing night, you bleedin' stupid krauts._

Newkirk fell into formation and glanced at the colonel who stood next to him in the line, looking as frustrated by the cold as he was.

_God, what I wouldn't give for a night I didn't have to spend half an hour standing in the snow waiting for Klink._

It was, in fact, an hour that Klink made them stand at attention, the Kommandant having been distracted by the arrival of another colonel from Berlin, before he finally dismissed them.

They hurried into their barracks, their legs stiff and hands and face numb.

"Filthy Bosche," LeBeau spat, hurriedly placing logs into their stupidly ineffectual heater.

"Goodness, doesn't Klink know it's cold out there?" Carter chimed in and Newkirk sent a scathing glare his way as LeBeau rolled his eyes and Kinch deigned not to dignify that. Carter looked momentarily confused, and Hogan just sighed,

"Never mind, Carter," he said, and Newkirk could see despite the words, the Colonel was not actually annoyed at the young sergeant, "everyone into your beds, Kinch get down to the tunnels, LeBeau, Carter, Newkirk, get changed. We're heading out the emergency tunnel in ten,"

Everyone snapped to, responding to the Colonel.

Newkirk grabbed his new uniform from the trunk, hidden within his spare uniform. He shrugged out of his outer layers, grimacing as the cold assaulted him,

"Gosh, it's so cold," Carter complained from behind him,

"Too bleeding cold to be standin' 'round 'ere in me underwear," Newkirk replied, earning himself laughter from the other men, which just as quickly was silenced by a thud on the door and a " _Ruhig!_ Quiet in there!"from Shultz, outside.

The prisoners complied if only to keep the man from coming in to see the three agents finishing with their  _unnecessarily complicated bloody_ uniforms, or at least Newkirk though to as he did the top and extremely tight top button up, grimacing at how it chaffed against his neck. He could have easily sewn these himself, but the Colonel thought it would be best for the most authenticity possible, so they 'borrowed' these clothes from the laundry in town, all thanks to their favourite veterinarian, Schnitzer. The gestapo men who had dropped it off for cleaning would not be back for a week, giving them plenty of time to get it back. Unfortunately, it also meant the fit was slightly off. Newkirk's was too tight and LeBeau's too long, while Carter's was a little loose on the waist.

Newkirk finished and jammed his own clothes into his trunk, turning as the Colonel came out in his  _Oberst's_  uniform and felt his breath catch in his chest. Long legs, in tight fitting slacks, knee high boots, a crisp white shirt and black blazer, hair uncharacteristically messy and cap in hand, the Colonel closed his door behind him and grinned cockily at them. If Newkirk thought he saw something flash across the Colonel's eyes when they glanced past him, it must have been a trick of the semi-darkness.

Pushing the strange moment away,  _what is happening to me?,_  Newkirk followed his mates down the ladder into the tunnels, hearing the colonel behind him, telling those left behind to "have fun and remember mom said no talking after twelve!"

They waited patiently as the colonel closed the trap door, their eyes adjusting to the cavern quickly, the support beams they so carefully erected flickering in the light from the oil lamps on the wall,

"Alright, let's go," Hogan said, and they moved off towards the central cross roads, Kinch having turned their radio off, waiting for them there, with their weapons and packs. They buckled their guns, grabbed their torches and followed the colonel down their longest tunnel.

Newkirk felt his heart flutter in his chest as for the first time that night, it truly hit him about what they were going to do. The danger, the fatal ending if they were caught – and then he felt a smile spread across his face,  _this is what you were made for,_  he told himself as he emerged into the night and then made a hasty dive for a bush as the searchlight swept past where he had been standing not a second ago. A rustle and the colonel appeared over him,

"You alright?" he asked. Newkirk nodded and the Colonel offered him a hand up. Together they moved off, and the Colonel set a fast pace towards the place where their cars were parked. Andrew tripped in front of him and he righted the clumsy sergeant before returning to his own thoughts, the darkness of the night enclosing them in a shield against the danger of patrols.

He was really not sure what his reaction to the Colonel was tonight. It was safe to say that he had literally never felt as completely blindsided as he did when the Colonel stepped out. Like the guv' was the only man he had ever seen wear a suit with such poise.  _Ugh, what am I thinking?_  Newkirk shook his head, disgusted with himself. And why tonight? When they all needed to be one hundred percent on their game, why did his stupid mind have to take a moment to- to appreciate? Is that what he was doing? Appreciation was okay right? Appreciate that the Colonel cut a fine form. It shouldn't surprise him. The colonel wasn't such a hit with all the ladies for no reason after all. So why in god's name was he so caught up in the Colonel's new look? Newkirk sighed out loud, his circular thoughts providing no answers and unintentionally drawing Carter's attention,

"Boy, are you nervous too? I'm nervous. I dunno, Peter, this is all so different to dropping bombs," he whispered, falling back so that he could talk to the Englishman and Newkirk felt the corner of his mouth turn up. Carter certainly had a knack for being the only man in their outfit who could express how he was feeling out loud and thus result in making them all feel a tad better for it,

"I know, mate, me too" Newkirk answered, surprising himself with the lack of sarcastic reply and was rewarded for it with a smile from the munitions man,

"Boy, that makes me feel so much better," he replied earnestly, stumbling again, looking at Newkirk rather than the ground and the corporal rolled his eyes,

"Watch the ground, you numpty," he growled, grabbing Carter's elbow to steady him again and the sergeant grinned bashfully, hearing the affection underneath the name calling.

They arrived at the truck within another ten minutes, and he climbed into the cabin with Hogan. The colonel glanced at him as he reached for the keys, moving to turn away, but then snapped his gaze back to Newkirk again, and the corporal froze,

"What's wrong guv?" he asked,

Hogan reached out and Newkirk was confused until the colonel touched his cheek and mild pain flared, "why didn't you tell me?" Hogan sounded angry, his words quiet but serious, rubbing his hands with Newkirk's blood on them onto his pants and pulling out a handkerchief.

Newkirk raised a hand to his sore cheek, and was amazed at himself that he hadn't even noticed,

"I didn't realise," he mumbled and was surprised when Hogan pushed his hanky into Newkirk's other hand,

"Use this," the colonel said, starting the truck and sending them lurching forward. Newkirk was once again surprised but replied with,

"Colonel you know the cleaning lady hates blood stains,"

"I'm sure you can charm her into not giving us a lecture," Hogan chuckled back and Newkirk smiled as he held the cloth against his cheek.

Half an hour later, they were climbing out of the truck and were setting the dynamite up underneath the anti-aircraft site's main building, just at the critical point. Kinch had remained in the back of the truck monitoring a mobile radio, hooked to their home made headphones, listening for the slightest hint that they had been rumbled as imposters. LeBeau and Newkirk were standing guard at the entrance, while the Colonel helped Carter to arrange the sticks and to connect the last few wires. They worked quickly and hid the entire thing in a wine box, before moving the other real bottles of wine into place around it,

"One for the road, mon colonel?" LeBeau asked hopefully and Newkirk added,

"Yeah colonel, a little wine never hurt anybody, seems such a shame to waste it,"

The colonel rolled his eyes and nodded to LeBeau, who shoved it into his jacket and followed their CO out.

They were back at camp in another half an hour and as the sound of planes overhead echoed, they were safely within their bunks and all " _present and accounted_   _for_ ,  _Herr Kommandant!"_  at 5am when a small gestapo officer by the name of Hochstetter screamed at Klink to make a surprise roll call.

Stumbling back into the barracks after a prompt dismissal by the Germans, Newkirk followed LeBeau, Kinch and Carter into Hogan's office, and grinned widely as the Colonel threw his hat onto the table and turned around to look at them, gathered in his doorway,

"We pulled it off!" Carter exclaimed, stealing the words form Newkirk's mouth and the Englishman clapped the sergeant on the back, throwing his other arm around Louis, who raised a fist with a "Vive la France!" while Kinch merely laughed along, making the Colonel chuckle as he leant his hip against the table, the lamp above swinging where he had accidentally hit it before,

"Well done," he said looking at them and Newkirk felt like someone had lit a spark in his chest as it warmed under the Colonel's praise. Judging from the blinding smiles of everyone else, they were equally pleased, "now go get some sleep, guys, tomorrow we have more work to do," they turned to file out, wishing the Colonel a goodnight as they went and Newkirk was about to congratulate Carter on his bombs when the Colonel called out,

"But a word with you first, Newkirk?" and the corporal suddenly felt a moment of worry. Was the colonel mad at him? Had he done something during their mission to jeopardise all of them without realising it? Newkirk stopped and turned in the doorway, walking back inside and shutting the door behind him as Kinch left.

The colonel was looking at him with a serious expression, "Peter," he began and that was when the corporal felt like he was in deep trouble, "if you are ever hurt again in the field, please do not wait until your uniform is stained with blood to tell me," the Colonel pushed off the desk and walked to his bunk, his eyebrows furrowed, his tone irate,

Newkirk let out a pent up breath,  _that was not where I expected this to go, thought I had done something wrong on the actual mission,_ "blimey, Colonel, I told you I didn't know," he said, and Hogan's eyes narrowed,

"How can you not notice that your cheek was bleeding?" he asked, his voice taking on an incredulous tone.

_I was too busy thinking about you_ , Peter replied in his head,  _and my own weird reactions,_ but out loud he replied, "I was preoccupied, 'appens when you could be shot as a spy, you know," realising it was a flimsy excuse but frankly not able to come up with a better one, and falling back on the old snark in the absence of anything else,

The colonel sighed, "Listen," he gave up on walking and instead took a seat on the bottom bunk, "sit," he ordered and Newkirk found himself complying, taking a seat across from the older man. The colonel ran a hand through his black locks and then fixed Newkirk to the spot with a stare, "I know you've not had much luck in the way of commanding officers," Hogan began and Newkirk opened his mouth as comprehension dawned on him where the Colonel was going, but Hogan held a hand up, predicting what the corporal was going to say,

"Don't bother telling me that doesn't affect the way you see me," Hogan said and Newkirk shut his mouth, blue eyes finding it hard to keep looking at the unusually serious expression on his colonel's face, "they mistreated you, cast you out for past offences that has nothing to do with your admirable courage and aptitude for the RAF,"

Newkirk felt his face flush as he realised the Colonel really wasn't kidding when he said that he had a complete history of their lives,

"And they certainly didn't stop to see that you are in fact a better man than anyone has ever given you credit for,"

The corporal felt his world tilt slightly off its axis, and knew his face was beet red.

Hogan chuckled at the frankly endearing look of rabbit in headlights that Newkirk was projecting, the corporal so unused to praise from anyone, "but," he continued, "I do. And I respect you for it. And I want you, I want the others, to be able to trust me enough to tell me if you are hurt, or you need a break,"

"Yes sir," Newkirk found himself saying, still struggling to get around this –  _friendship – oh my god, friendship!_  – that Hogan was so freely offering.

Silence hung in the room for a moment, and Newkirk found himself replying, "I – thankyou sir, I've never had anyone be so…" Newkirk found he didn't have the word for it and Hogan laughed for real this time.

The colonel pushed himself off the bed and clapped Newkirk on the shoulder, "Good. Keep that in mind. Now get some shut-eye, I need you awake tomorrow, we're convincing Klink to play in our orchestra again, for King and country and all that,"

Newkirk merely nodded once and moved to the door,

"Oh and Peter?" Newkirk turned to watch the Colonel unzip his jacket,

"Sir?" he asked, and received for his trouble a gentle smile,

"Night,"

"Night, Sir,"

* * *

If Newkirk hadn't been confused before, he definitely was now.

Two surprise escapees from Stalag nine had found their way to them and the colonel had him down in the tunnel working on a suit for the second man who was six foot three and thus did not fit anything they had pre-made.

It also gave the English corporal far, far, too much time with his own tumultuous thoughts.

_Just me bloody luck. Start work as a spy and get a commanding officer that's so nice, I don't actually know what to do about it. Dammit._

Newkirk shoved the needle into the fabric with more force than was necessary and yanked it through, bringing together the seam of the sleeve and the shoulder, the lamp light flickering in his sharp movements, the air cool and damp.

Around him echoed the escapee's voices from further down the tunnel accompanied by LeBeau's accent, telling them what to expect and teaching them the basic German phrases they may need if questioned by anyone.

Newkirk sighed and let the suit jacket drop to his lap.

In the six months that the Colonel had been here, the corporal had felt as if he were riding a train that had lost its tracks. Sometimes he felt like he had been thrown into a bucket of ice water and other times like the heater had accidentally turned into a bonfire, washing him with waves of heat. There was only one constant through all of that and that was his ever present, thrice damned, confusion.

Never in his entire life, had Newkirk felt so overwhelmed by any sort of relationship in his life, not with his family, not with his friends and  _blood 'ell, not even with me lovers. Wish Mavis was 'ere. She always seems to know what to make of these stupid feelings._ Peter felt a stab of regret at the thought of his sister. Always meddling where she should learn to leave well enough alone, she was his older sister and he loved her and damn did he miss her surprisingly sage advice. However, wishing for her here would help nothing at all, so he sighed again at the fruitlessness of these thoughts.

Hogan, he knew was unique and he supposed it should make perfect sense that his reaction to Hogan was unique. The man never could seem to anything the normal way.

It was thus that Newkirk found himself arriving at a decision. He was going to stop questioning himself all the time. If he kept this up he was going to go 'round the bend. And he was not going to discuss this with the Colonel either. It wasn't a trust thing so much as it was not wanting to do anything to upset what may be the one of the greatest units he's ever been a part of.

_Yes. This will work._

And with that Newkirk pushed his conflicting emotions to the back of his mind and instead focused on getting the angle of this sleeve just right.

* * *

Hogan cracked his back as LeBeau left the room and stretched out his cramping fingers. Being commanding officer was not always fun. There were lists for the Red Cross and rosters to be made, men to be checked on, and always, always, a smile on his face to be had. For if he wasn't smiling why should the others smile?

Hogan let out a breath as he raised his arms above his head.  _Be a good example for them and you'll be rewarded,_  he told himself,  _they need you. If only it weren't so bloody hard not to complain about the cold, the food, the beds, the showers._

Hogan stopped that train of thought. He had known becoming an officer would demand sacrifices. To need to be more than a man, so longing for the chance to act human wasn't going to cut it. No wonder he found himself spending so much time harassing Klink. At least there, he was not expected to be always composed and always strong; Klink was too blind to notice the difference anyway.

The only good thing about this rat hole were his men and after their first mission almost a month ago they proved themselves beyond his wildest imagination,  _and it can get pretty wild,_ he found himself smirking.

They behaved dutifully, efficiently and even Carter was managing beautifully, mission after mission. He could hardly believe it himself, honestly. He was also as eager as the others to get word from London on what they thought about their latest demolition job.

_London…_ an image of a blood-smeared face suddenly intruded into his thoughts and Hogan found his heart skipping several beats, the momentary fear of that night slamming into him as he remembered, irritated at himself at the potency of the feelings even after all this time. Anger also joined in as he remembered Peter's easy dismissal.

_Forgotten about it my ass,_  he thought, savagely signing the latest requisition for more food and less sawdust in their bread,  _I may throttle Peter's previous commanders myself for instilling this distrust in him_. Hogan blew out another breath, staring at the paper but not really reading it.

In the last seven months, the Colonel had found himself drawn to the Englander's quick wit and devious charm, and he found he was worried how quickly the thought of the other man being injured could wind him up,

_Same for all my boys,_  he assured himself and upon deeper introspection he was glad to see that was indeed the case, but still, he knew that when it came to Corporal Peter Newkirk, RAF third squadron, he would have a harder time in trying to get over something happening to him and it scared him.

This was not a business for emotional attachments. Yet he already felt an almost fatherly protection towards Carter. And for LeBeau and Kinch an admiration of how much crap they took in this line of work, the stress of rescuing downed fliers, the challenge of role-playing their way through espionage and sabotage. And for Peter…an affection that was quickly being expressed in an arm over the shoulder or a hand around the waist.

_I'm a tactile person,_ Hogan tried to assure himself,  _yes but this is getting ridiculous,_ he found himself pointing frowned,  _Shut up,_  he told himself, knowing full well telling himself to shut up was the first sign that all was not as it should be.

He played with the pen in his hands.

He could sit here all day, every day, wondering about the new relationships he was forming. Or he could get to work, and remember to be a little less obvious about his -  _bias? Damn. No! Yes. God help me, bias –_ towards Peter in everyday situations. And it shouldn't be a problem.

_I hope so anyway._

* * *

**_Hey guys, thanks for reading. So it's going to be a multi-chapter story, even though I intentionally only meant to write a oneshot (what a shock), but I will try and be prompt with updates. The second chapter is already in progress - angst be coming :P_ **

**_Also shout out to Bits and Pieces, Snooky and misanthrope1 even though this is the first thing I've written for this fandom and they don't actually know me. I just needed to express my love for both their works and honestly just wanted to get writing in this great fandom._ **

**_See ya soon,_ **

**_Love <3_ **


	2. Ships in the night

**_So this does take place during and the after the episode "The Flame Grows Higher" in Season 1, I couldn't resist :P It will take quite a bit of twist though._ **

**_All characters and lines borrowed don't belong to me, I'm just lucky enough to play with it for a bit._ **

**_This chapter is RATED M for violence and language._ **

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Ships in the Night**

_Turn the lights down low,_

_Walk these halls alone,_

_We can feel so far from so close_

_Like ships in the night_

-  _Ships in the Night, Matt Kearney_

Newkirk was as surprised as the Colonel to see Captain Warren, whom they had just helped to escape last week brought back into the camp, and he and the others stopped in the middle of their laundry to stare as their colonel frowned and walked over to the Captain, watching as Klink gloated over the capture.

Newkirk exchanged a glance with LeBeau as the captain was sentenced, and Kinch raised his eyebrows as Hogan attempted to manipulate some time alone with the man from their favourite sergeant of the guard, and Carter continued to mutter under his breath about the unfairness of the Captain being captured, just after they had managed to free him,

"Looks like the Guv' might need me 'elp," Newkirk muttered as Shultz's " _Verboten!"_ carried across the frigid compound,

"Let's go," LeBeau agreed, and Kinch nodded, allowing the English corporal the lead,

"'Ey, Schultz, Shultz!," Newkirk called, elbowing his way past his CO accidentally, and grabbing the large man on the shoulder. Behind him, Kinch struck up a conversation with the guards, and Hogan placed a finger over his mouth, as if he was about to interrupt but thought better off it.

Even as Newkirk skilfully stole the key, and hooked it into the back of Shultz's belt, and then started acting like the innocent corporal he most certainly was not, something in the back of his mind was grinning madly at the tiny nod of approval and hint of a smile Hogan had thrown his way.

_Blimey, but this is an overreaction,_ Newkirk had to admit, yet found himself powerless to stop it, joining in with the others as they made a  _right ruddy fool_  out of their hapless guard and Hogan stood some while away, his look getting steadily darker as he talked to Captain Warren.

It was ten minutes later that they had decided to have mercy on the sergeant, give him the cooler key back and were sitting in their own barracks, gathered around their table. Hogan paced back and forth, his eyes locked on the ground and silent. After a year together, they all knew better than to disturb the colonel, instead attending to their own work as he thought their problem through.

Carter and LeBeau were finishing up their laundry while Kinch had picked up his whittling project. Newkirk sat at the other end of the table, smoking his cigarette and doing his best not to watch the Colonel pace, although that was hard considering that he was doing so directly in front of them.

It had been another six months since their first sabotage attempt and to say that they were seasoned, would, in the corporal's opinion, be the understatement of the century. Sometimes he felt like his colonel was trying to win the war all by himself,  _and I suppose the batty ol' officer could probably do it, too_ , Newkirk's mind helpfully supplied, a peculiar warm feeling accompanying those thoughts.

The corporal was getting extremely adept at ignoring this feeling steadfastly.

He instead chose to watch Andrew and immediately found something to distract him,

"Andrew!" he called and the sergeant started,

"What?" he asked, looking down and then around as if checking for something he had done wrong,

"Is tha' me bleedin' shirt that I've been lookin' for everywhere?" he asked, his voice dangerously close to the growl that Carter had learnt to mean trouble. The sergeant's eyes flicked towards Louis momentarily and the English man narrowed his gaze, turning it instead on the French corporal, whose eyes quickly snapped down to the Colonel's spare shirt, which he was ironing at the moment,

"What's goin' on?" Newkirk asked, and LeBeau wasn't going to reply, but then Carter dropped the damn iron on his foot in a fit of nerves, and he knew their game was up,

"Well,  _mon frère,_ " he begun but Newkirk pointed a finger at him,

"Listen mate, none of that brother stuff. I've been wearing this bloody top for two ruddy months! You'd better 'ave a damn good reason as to why,"

Next to him, Kinch had up until then managed to act as if he had been zoned out from the daily bickering, but when a guffaw escaped him, that was more than Newkirk could take, and LeBeau spoke before the corporal launched into one of his anti-American, anti-French tirades that usually followed after Carter had accidentally burnt Newkirk's last pair of non-torn socks or LeBeau had made  _Bouillabaisse_ soup again,

"We needed it," LeBeau started,

"Yeah," Carter added, "honest, Peter, we never would have borrowed it otherwise,"

"Borrowed?" Newkirk repeated, one eyebrow reaching for his fringe, his tone deceptively calm, staring his friends down,

"She was cold,  _Pierre!,_ " LeBeau exclaimed and that more or less knocked Newkirk off-kilter,

"Huh?" was the corporal's reply and Kinch laughed again,

"A rabbit, Peter. Carter has a rabbit down in the tunnels and she found your blue polo, when you had ripped it off before the Colonel set you out on a short collection mission," Kinch explained and it dawned on Newkirk that that  _was_  the day the shirt went missing, "she found it and apparently was absolutely-"

"Really sad, Peter,' Carter cut in and continued, "When I tried to take it away! And her ears were all floppy and her nose was all twitchy so I couldn't take it, except she finally let go this morning so…" he trailed off and the English man pinched the bridge of his nose. Had it been anyone else who had used his top for a  _rabbit, Christ, but this one's 'round the bend,_ he would probably not forgive them. Unfortunately for him though, it was Andrew, who once made a model of a deer for him out of scrap wood, leaving it on his pillow the day after he had told the guys how much he missed the forests him and his family used to see deer in, back in England, when they went camping. Andrew, who would fold his clothes for him when he unceremoniously dumped them on the bed after a mission, and who had once even sacrificed his blanket when Newkirk had gotten a terrible flu, covering the corporal after dark, without anyone else seeing and spending the entire night cold and uncomfortable.

"Never mind," he found himself muttering and as he went to turn back to the table he caught Kinch's eyes, an amused glint in them, "shut up," he countered while Kinch chuckled,

"I didn't say anything," he said, "but you're going soft," and then he added in an affected British accent,  _"old chap,"_

"Sod off!" Newkirk shot back, playfully punching him on the arm but they all quickly sobered up when Hogan dropped between them with a, "Knock it off, guys, and listen up,"

Newkirk turned so he was facing the Colonel and, doing his very best to ignore the fact that he could smell the Colonel's cologne at this proximity and found he didn't really mind it, and knowing that anything more than a subtle shift away may attract more attention than necessary, focused on what the Colonel was saying instead.

The Colonel described the route that the Captain had taken, and insisted that there must have been a traitor along the way for the Captain to have been picked up.

"We'll just have to travel the route ourselves," the Colonel finished with a flourish, getting to his feet, and Newkirk felt a spike of excitement as the guvnor mentioned his name along with LeBeau's, ignoring Carter's comment about the laundry, "We'll be the pigeons, the bait," Hogan continued and Newkirk sighed internally. He was at a stage, and he knew for a fact that LeBeau was too, where he would happily have followed Hogan into anything, but he quickly wiped the smile off his face, to keep up appearances, and looking up, said,

"I would consider it most cowardly, to escape at this time, my duty is here, at Stalag 13," and he watched with some amusement as Hogan didn't react at all, but listened to LeBeau's complaint. Then the Colonel looked down and continued, "There are a couple of girls that operate the Keiserhof," in that same tone Newkirk had heard used far too many times on Klink, but Newkirk grinned anyway, volunteering his services freely along with the Frenchman,

_Blimey, at last! Frustration don't even begin to cover what I've been feeling, couped up in here._

Newkirk picked up his playing cards, a small grin on his lips, as the Colonel arranged for Carter and Kinch to start a fake fire, and then left for the Kommandant's office to con Klink into letting them out of the camp for a day, easy pickings for his silver tongue.

Hogan grimaced as the cold air hit him and tried not to feel a sense of irritation that volunteers only ever turned up when girls were involved – because he knew that his men are only ever play acting, always trying a new game out, something to break the monotony. He saw their dedication to their cause, and, though he felt slightly arrogant when he thought it, to him, in the quality of their work and their sheer resilience - and he knew he shouldn't be so bothered by the fact that it was  _Peter_  who jumped up so fast he would have bruised his leg if he'd leant a centimetre more forward. They were men, and they had been here a long time. Women should be a reward he should be glad to give his men and on deeper examination he found he didn't mind the thought of LeBeau with the pretty  _fraulines_  they were bound to meet. It was his other, louder, snappier corporal that he was really struggling to picture with a woman and it was approaching that  _odd_  emotional barrier he had erected last time when he had discovered his bias towards Peter. It was making him uncomfortable and he didn't have the time to analyse this.

Hiding all of this under a brilliant smile, he entered the  _Kommandantur_ and kissed Helga's neck softly as she rifled through a cabinet and murmured in her ear, nipping it lightly as he did, eliciting a most gorgeous giggle out of Klink's secretary. Only his heart wasn't terribly in it, and he decided it must be the very idea of a traitor in their system that was putting him off today.

_Except you've been off for a while now, Rob_ , that irritatingly accurate, snide voice in his head whispered and he shook it away as he entered Klink's office.  _I'll analyse that after this mission,_ he decided and then proceeded to play Klink like the Kommandant's tortured fiddle.

* * *

Newkirk started as the barracks door banged open, his head whipping around to reveal Shultz, looking surprised at the force at which the door opened, "blimey, Shultz, this may not be Berchtesgaden but d'you mind not knockin' the door down?" Newkirk asked, not sure what the sergeant was doing here but eager to get rid of him so they could start preparing for the mission,

"Sorry, Newkirk," he said, looking genuinely sorry and from the ironing table, LeBeau called out,

"I've not made any food today Schultz," and the sergeant nodded,

" _Ja_ ,  _ich weiß_ , I know, you have not, but I have a, how you say, little something for you?" his round face lit up and Kinch shrugged when Newkirk looked at him,

"Well what is it, Shultz?" Carter asked, "gee, I don't like being kept in suspense," and Newkirk rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered how Carter got into the air force.

Shultz, meanwhile, pulled an actual block of cheese and white bread from the inside of his jacket, "I found these," he stated, putting them onto the table while all gathered stared at the goodies like every Christmas had come at once,

"That's not real cheese," Kinch said, looking at the block like it might explode and the sergeant laughed,

"It is!" he said,

"C'mon Shultz, where did someone like you, get something like this?" Kinch asked and Newkirk nodded,

"I know nothing," Shultz replied with,

_Right smug bastard,_ Newkirk thought, but found his usual hatred of the Nazis, as always, was hard to stretch towards Shultz,

"I was wondering, LeBeau, if you could make that bread pudding with the  _Käse?"_ the guard asked and Newkirk watched the other corporal fight the urge to say no,

"Yeah, Schultz, now get out of here before the Kommandant sees you fraternising with us," LeBeau said and the guard nodded,

" _Ja,_ I will go. Call me when it's ready!" and with that the man walked out, closing the door more gently this time,

"Look at that," LeBeau huffed, his hands on his hips, "now he thinks we take orders,"

"Well I told you, feed him only once a day, or he'll get used to it and then we'll have to retrain him," Kinch said dryly, and LeBeau scowled while Newkirk and Carter laughed,

"Oh yeah? Well see if I make the pudding,"

"What pudding?" Hogan asked, as he walked through the door of the barracks, and was immediately filled in by the others, and gave his French corporal an understanding look,

"We need him on our side, LeBeau," he reminded the man gently while the Frenchman was one step away from pouting,

"Damned Bosche," LeBeau said, conveying that he did not want to cook for a German for the sake of cooking, because he was no collaborator,

"And think about it this way," Hogan said, causing LeBeau to stop glaring at the cheese and look at him instead, "if you fatten Schultz up enough, all we have to do is trip him onto Hochstetter the next time he comes in and it will be deemed an accident," to which the French man smiled and reluctantly conceded to Hogan, to laughter but no surprise from the rest of the men.

* * *

It was three hours later that they found themselves running away from Shultz, who was still at their 'forest fire' and approaching the Kaiserhof. Newkirk felt almost self-conscious in his worn out navy blues, compared to the still shiny leather jacket Hogan was wearing.  _An' me boots are scuffed beyond savin'_  he added, looking at the dust covered shoes that had so many holes it was like wearing a sieve. It wasn't that they didn't have access to better equipment as such, it was more to the fact that if it was inspected and found to be in good quality, after being in camp for two years, they would have a hard time explaining it.

The Colonel was leading the three of them, and he entered the door of the Kaiserhof, the warm lighting and heat a welcome change from the bitterly cold winter's day outside. Suddenly there was a gun on them so fast, they barely had time to react, held by one of the two lovely ladies waiting inside. Hogan quickly gave the recognition code's first line and the tension was released as the girls responded correctly, lowering their guns. Newkirk glanced back at LeBeau and grinned,  _fine lookin' pair they are too, exactly what I need to…clear me 'ead_ , he added to himself.

Hogan leant against the bar as the frauline in green, asked if they were escaped prisoners, and then watched in amusement as LeBeau all but sprinted over to kiss her hand, his excitement almost tangible. Then the colonel found his amusement fading rather sharply as Newkirk joined in, grabbing her other hand, wearing a smile that was hidden behind the frauline's hand, one that was so charming Hogan wondered if LeBeau would stand a chance, before coming back to himself, as the girls' introduced themselves,

"We'll skip our names for now," he said, knowing that erring on any side other than caution would be foolishness in the extreme and had to fight the urge to roll his eyes himself as LeBeau cut in with one of his more cheesy lines about love,

_And does Peter need to hold her hand? LeBeau got there first, he should back off and – what the hell am I thinking about this for?_

Then the girls decided the men should be offered some wine, and Hogan felt the patience he had snap for no immediately apparent reason he could his put finger on, as Newkirk attempted to follow LeBeau and the girl, Margit, into the cellar,

"Alright, break it up," he said, his tone firm and his expression annoyed, "watch the door," he ordered Newkirk with a jerk of his head and completely ignored the way that angry blue eyes drilled holes into his head in protest, then after one last stab with "we ain't even in the same army!" watched as Newkirk more or less stalked out. He resolutely ignored the part of him that was incredibly happy at the thought of Newkirk away from any particular girl, telling himself that it was definitely for security reasons alone that he ordered Newkirk to door, as he slid onto the barstool.

_Now is not the time for this Rob,_ he reminded himself, instead focusing on what the girl in front of him, Eva, was saying, responding as expected of a man who had just been in prison for an extended period of time surrounded completely by men, but watching her carefully. Alarm bells went off in his head when she asked him about Warren being recaptured and they turned into klaxons when she gave her actual name on the phone conversation. Although he nearly didn't hear it because he had been so distracted by Peter's interruption and the very clear indignation still in the corporal's voice, causing a stab of guilt that was almost physical in its force.

Hogan forced it out of his mind and focused instead in getting the remainder of the information out of her, listening as she said that they needed to go down the road to get their further instructions on escaping.

When LeBeau and Margit arrived back, Hogan ordered them to move out, not sure what to make of the look Eva threw his way as he followed his men out.

Outside, Newkirk was fuming as he waited for the Colonel and refused to acknowledge him as he jammed his hat back on, "back to Shultz," Hogan instructed and they nodded, but Newkirk had to bite his tongue from adding another comment about how he couldn't believe the Colonel had put him on the door.

_Finally get a chance to get back to the old me, get rid of these weird feelin's and the ruddy bastard officer tells me to look at the door. Bet 'e was snoggin' the 'ell outta that other bird_.

However, now Newkirk found the imagery  _that_  thought produced was ten times more distressing that having to watch the door. Somehow he didn't like the idea of the guv' with anyone else, except then the corporal was still more confused because then he had to wonder who he wouldn't mind seeing the Colonel with, and as he went through the list of recurring female underground agents, he came up blank, so his reasoning of  _it's because I didn't get to be with her_  rather went up in smoke. Which left him confused. Again.

Meanwhile, as he led his men back at a brisk pace to where they had left their sergeant of the guard, Hogan was replaying the meeting over in his mind. Half of it was replaying the girls' reactions, going over how they seemed far too comfortable with their names and the danger, and the other half going over Peter's interaction with the girl, try though he might to move onto something more important.

_She seemed far too eager to kiss me, and not nearly eager enough to check our ID, hardly the quality of the wary underground agent that she should be. He seemed intent on kissing Margit, I wonder what it would be like to be under that sort of stare. The wine offered by the girls must have been to loosen our lips, to get us to reveal our names and maybe even more. What would Peter be like truly drunk? Would he get more affectionate? The phone call couldn't be from the winter relief, surely, no-one hangs up on that if they don't want to be harassed. He can't remain angry forever, and I hope he doesn't ask me why I chose him to watch the door because I don't have a good answer._

Hogan was brought out of his divided internal monologue by Schultz's yell. The colonel made short work of distracting Shultz long enough to steal the truck and drove off with it, intending to park it somewhere it will take Shultz at least another three hours to find it.

After they parked, he and his men hopped out and he motioned for them to follow him, drawing his gun and indicating they should do the same. LeBeau had a determined look on his face, and when Newkirk made eye contact, a part of the colonel relaxed, realising that the angry pools returned to their bright blue intelligence

_And I need to stop analysing Peter's eyes_ , he added to himself .

They arrived at the ridge over the next stop of the escape route, the three of them crawling on their bellies, guns drawn and Hogan turned to the others, "Okay, I'm going to go in first. You two stay here, and if I'm not back in ten minutes take the truck, find Schultz and get back to camp,"

"What, and-and leave you in there?" Newkirk asked, his eyebrows drawn together in worry, for once the concern all too evident in his voice,

"If it is a trap do you want to come barging in and get knocked off too?" The colonel asked and Newkirk looked away in lieu of a better argument, his mind working furiously to try and think of something to get the Colonel to change his mind,

"But Colonel, we are a team!" LeBeau chimed in, looking imploringly at the Colonel even as he shook his head,

"C'mon," Hogan said, "You've got your orders. Remember, ten minutes, then back to camp, understood?"

"Righ' Sir" Newkirk reluctantly replied as next to him LeBeau said, "okay," neither of them ecstatic as they watched the Colonel make his way down the hill,

"I don't bloody like this," Newkirk muttered, feeling like something cold was spreading in his chest,

"We have our orders," LeBeau replied and Newkirk all but growled,

"Since when do you listen to orders?"

LeBeau cast his friend a sidelong glance and only that stopped him from replying with something equally sharp. Newkirk was biting his lip, tossing his gun from hand to hand, his back leg tapping a log that was just behind it as the minutes drew on. The man was nervous and LeBeau reminded himself any harsh words from Peter when he got like this meant little.

Newkirk was fighting the urge to just go in there and find his colonel, never mind disobeying a direct order to do so. Sitting here didn't feel right, and anger and irritation warred with his concern and worry, the two emotions alternating in their strength from minute to minute.  _'ow would he like it if we was the ones who ruddy well up and walked into a trap? Selfish bastard,_   _ruddy –_ "what's that?" Newkirk suddenly asked, startling LeBeau, pointing to a car that was heading towards the farm house. He felt his heart lurch as he spotted the SS flags on the car, and LeBeau confirmed as much,

"The SS! Gestapo! We must get  _mon Colonel!"_  He said, looking at Peter with wide eyes, as they both scrambled up into a half crouch,

The corporal's mind worked fast, "get to the truck and get back to Shultz, tell him that the Colonel and me 'ave escaped," Peter said and the corporal frowned at him,

"You want me to leave you behind!" he accused and Peter nodded,

"I outrank you, I was made corporal before you,"

"Damn ranking!" LeBeau spat out, finding himself agitated with the idea of leaving another one of his friends behind, especially Peter, who was, he reasoned, like a rose. Thorny as you try to get near, beautiful and soft and velvety once you did, " _Pierre,_ " he tried again,

The English corporal was moved by Loius' fear for him, but he shook his head as a car door slammed shut behind him,

"No time, Louis, just go! You'll do us more good if we can't get out of here, by saying something about the gestapo to the Kommandant," he gave the Frenchman a shove, and without waiting to see if he left, Newkirk turned and deftly ran down the hill.

As he ran, he could hear the bell ringing inside the house, knowing his Colonel was still in there.

_Oh god, an' the last thing I said to 'im was unpleasant, god please, let him be safe. I don't know what this world would be like without him, we – I need him, please-"_

His own haphazard thoughts were cut off as he drew level with the door and voices could be heard inside. Without waiting for anything else to happen, Newkirk threw the door open, in time to see the newly arrived gestapo man pointing a gun at the guv', and he saw his hand begin to move on the trigger.

Without a second's thought, Newkirk was moving, and as he launched himself at the Colonel he heard the man's surprised yell, heard the deafening bang of the gun, and smelt the fresh cologne that Hogan so loved to use. Then he saw nothing.

* * *

Hogan stared at the barrel of the gun, "I'm an escapee, I told you I snuck in on these people, Major,"

'Germany does not abide liars," the major in front of him sneered, as his men brutally hit the old man Hogan had come upon, his wife already lying on the floor from the first hit, scarily still. He tried not to wince as the next smack resounded around the room,

"I'm not lying. They are not involved,"

"Exactly what you would say if they were. You would not care, Colonel, if they did not try and help you," the agent countered, and Hogan could feel a hint of panic now. This one was not the standard stock of Gestapo he had come across so far. This one was intelligent. Silence fell on the hut, "Germany also does not abide wasting resources on filthy, foreign prisoners," he added, and Hogan watched as he took the safety of the gun, "better if they are all, well, shot while escaping,"

"I think you might want to reconsider. I am, after all, from the toughest POW camp in Germany," Hogan said, trying to change his tact, "our Kommandant doesn't like it when others discipline us,"

"I'll take my chances," he replied, and that was when Hogan caught something blue flying at him out of the corner of his eyes, even as he watched the Major's finger twitch on the trigger. An involuntary strangled yell left him as the blur of blue collided with him and a bang echoed around the room as the figure and he crashed to the ground. Hogan groaned as a sharp pain lanced through his head but opened his eyes to see a mess of black hair on his chest, and he felt a sudden, painful spike of fear,

"Peter?" he gasped, recognising the blue cap and black hair anywhere, and he forced himself to sit up, struggling under the corporal's weight, but freezing when a moan left the man on top of him. His heart suddenly constricted, he levered himself onto one hand and with his right, grabbed his corporal's shoulder, shock and still more fear flooding him as they touched a hot, sticky substance and the corporal moaned in real pain again.

Hogan glanced up to see the major watching the situation with some amusement, "look at that, how well he protects his master,"

For the first time Hogan felt a flare of white hot anger, "you bastard," he snarled and the gestapo major chuckled as Hogan carefully turned Peter over to assess the damage. There was a bullet wound in his shoulder, the navy blues steadily tuning purple as bright red blood seeped out, and the man had passed out, and his skin far too pale and his breaths too sharp and shallow.

"Peter?" he repeated again, shaking the corporal lightly. The man didn't respond, and Hogan sat up properly, moving the corporal onto his lap, shrugging out of his jacket. He was stopped there though, as the cold metal of the gun pressed into his neck,

"What do you think you're doing, Colonel?" The major asked, his voice frighteningly close to Hogan's neck, and the colonel fought the urge to shiver in disgust at the other man's proximity, unsure of when the man had moved,

"Putting pressure on the wound," he replied, and the man chuckled behind him,

"Cute, that you think you can save him," he replied and the Colonel felt a wave of hopelessness wash over him, before he pulled himself back together,

"Please," he found the word escaping his mouth, and he would have been ashamed at the desperation behind it, if Peter hadn't shifted in his lap, making a small, injured noise, turning his cheek into Hogan's thigh, as if seeking comfort.

It was another agonising moment before the gun was removed from the back of his neck,

"I will give you your false hope. Having your hope crushed will be better for us," the major replied, walking around to the other side while Hogan wasted no time. He stripped his shirt off quickly, ignoring the cold air that assaulted him, and quickly pulled on the seam that had been coming loose, so he could rip two strips off. Then, he bundled the shirt, as the major yelled orders to the men he brought with them. Hogan glanced up for long enough to see the completely lifeless bodies of the old couple be dragged out the door, into the bedroom.

He refocused on Peter and he laid his shirt on the wound, checking and finding that the bullet had indeed gone straight through the shoulder. He braced himself mentally, then applied pressure, and he didn't know if he felt worse or better when brilliant blue eyes shot open, accompanied by a yell,

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he mumbled, as he quickly used the strips that he had torn off to wrap the bandage as Peter dragged in laboured breaths, making tiny noises of pain,

"Guv'?" he asked, tilting his head to the side, his glassy eyes struggling to focus and the colonel laid a hand on the corporal's cheek, waiting until those eyes he so loved -  _loved?_ \- focused onto him,

"Yeah, Peter," he replied, and to his shock a small smile appeared on Peter's face,

" 's good…thought….they 'ad…" he trailed off, his eyes threatening to close and Hogan put his other hand on Peter's other cheek,

"Peter!" he called, desperate to keep him conscious,

"'m 'ere…guv'," Newkirk managed to reply, his voice strained, the words slurred and Hogan felt like something sharp and cold was twisting his heart into a painful knot,

"Hang in there," he half whispered, moving Peter into a more comfortable position,

"My, my how sweet. Such a pity he will die anyway, Colonel," The major cut in and Hogan threw him the dirtiest look he could muster, allowing his hands to leave Peter's cheeks, "we are moving now, Colonel. Pick your lapdog up and follow," he said, as the other gestapo men pointed their guns at the Colonel,

"He is not stable enough to move," the colonel said, in a last bid to stay where he was, trying to think of a way to overpower these two and get one up on the Major, but finding that with Peter as injured as he was, every plan endangered the corporal,

"Shut up. Stand up. Move!" The major yelled, turning out of the room with a sharp flick of his overcoat, barking orders at his guards in German, to make sure that the Colonel followed.

Resigned, Hogan carefully shifted Peter onto the floor, and stood up, pulling his jacket on over his undershirt and picking the corporals hat off the ground, unwilling to leave anything behind. Then, he crouched down and, hooking one arm under his legs, the other supporting his corporal around the back, he lifted Peter, holding the man near to his body, simultaneously surprised and not surprised at how light he was despite his height and strength.

The colonel attempted to stop his reaction when the corporal groaned at the jostling from walking but knew he had failed completely when he heard a laugh as they emerged into the evening light, the fading rays of sun casting a red glow on them all, the corporal's blood beginning to soak through his shirt-bandage.

"In the car, Colonel," the major said and Hogan complied, trying not to jostle Peter, laying him gently in the back seat, before straightening up, placing his head near the door, legs up on the seat.

"Do I at least get to know your name, Major?" he asked, turning to stare into dark brown eyes,

"Major Kessel, Johann," the man replied, pulling his leather gloves on tighter, "soon to be  _Oberführer,_  for the capture of dangerous escapees," he replied,

"You're returning us to camp?" Hogan asked, his tone changing to one that was suspicious as Kessel laughed,

"Certainly. Gestapo have no jurisdiction over you," he said and the Colonel had to stop a sarcastic comment, and was saved the trouble of voicing his concerns as the Major went on, "you'll be returned to camp as soon as the Gestapo have, shall we say,  _processed_ , you?" he finished in a sickly sweet tone and Hogan felt his stomach drop.

_Peter needs medical attention! This processing could take days. Oh my god, help me, help him, what if…what if…no._

The Major watched in interest as if waiting for Hogan's protest. He didn't get it as the colonel forced himself to gaze stoically back at the gestapo agent, refusing to give him this satisfaction, refusing to let the inner panic show. He was better than that, and he owed it to his corporal.

"Into the car, Colonel," the Major finally said, and Hogan, after casting him one last, distrusting look, climbed into the car from around the other side, just in time to catch Peter's eyes opening, locking onto his own as a lower ranked gestapo man prodded him in the back,

"Where…" Peter begun, struggling to string whole sentences together and Hogan shook his head, causing the corporal to fall silent.

Instead he lifted Peter's legs onto his own lap as the soldier behind him forced him to slide further into the car, and he found himself sending up a silent prayer for this to somehow work out.

_God if only I hadn't been so foolish. If only he hadn't been so damn loyal. Why, Peter why, did you have to jump in front of me?_

Yet as the car started, Hogan knew the answer, glancing down to the man he had and was and probably always will be so drawn to. He had seen his own care and concern reflected in the Englishman's small gestures – a completely knitted pair of new woolen socks for winter nights, randomly appearing on his bed after his other ones went missing; a hand on a shoulder after a long mission; a smile in the middle of a sabotage plot– all these little things that Peter did even as he tried to maintain a persona of not caring.

_And damn if that doesn't make me feel like a little piece of myself is dying_ , Hogan thought, hand coming to rest on Peter's forearm, hoping to provide some comfort as the corporal groaned because the car drove over a rough patch,

_Bastards._

Hogan grimaced as they were thrown around in the back seat again, still later, going over a ditch in the road, and Peter let out a low whine, his eyes opening a fraction,

"'m fine," he gasped out, even as his hands suddenly clenched on Hogan's forearm, and the tendons in his neck stood out as he gritted his teeth to prevent the scream and Hogan could only shake his head, the anger bubbling up under the surface,

_How dare they do this to him_ ,

"It'll be alright," he muttered, needing to close his eyes as they went over the next bump, but knowing that the image of his corporal in agony would be forever burned into his eyelids as another low pitched sound escaped the corporal. He didn't think he could take much more of this, and realised he was probably cutting off the circulation in Peter's hand from his grip, making the conscious effort to release the corporal's arm.

As they drove into the town, the only thing the Colonel could hope for now was that LeBeau had gotten cleanly away and was back at camp, and Klink had been alerted to their escape. It was a sad day that he had to rely on their inept Kommandant to be their saviour, but he was their last chance.

_We'll be alright, Peter. We have to be._

* * *

LeBeau felt like tearing his own hair out in sheer frustration at the inactivity they were forced into. It was six hours ago that his CO and his best friend were taken by the Gestapo. Six excruciating hours ago when LeBeau had heard the gunshot and his friendship warred with his duty to the rest of the men here, and Colonel Hogan's orders, to get back and report what they had seen.

He had been brought in through the front gates with Shultz, and the Kommandant had commended him on not escaping, allowing him to get back to the barracks. He had quickly relayed what he had seen to Kinch and Carter in the privacy of Hogan's office and watched as both their eyes widened with horror and he felt his own heart constrict yet again at the knowledge of the gunshot, but lack of information about who was actually shot.

LeBeau had seen movement from the hill, but the light had faded fast and he couldn't make out who was who. After they had left he had snuck into the cottage to find the old couple had been beaten to death but bore no bullet wounds, yet there was enough blood on the carpet, and the memory of a gunshot, to insinuate that someone had definitely been shot. With this knowledge alone, LeBeau had been forced to leave the house, running back to where Shultz was going mad, looking for them.

"Louis, perhaps you should sit," Carter, who had been outside somewhere, said, walking through the office door and closing it behind him, breaking LeBeau out of his cyclic thoughts. He approached the Frenchman cautiously, as if he were a deer, easily startled,

"Sit? How can I sit?  _Mon Colonel_ and Pierre could be anywhere by now, being held by some  _filthy bosche_  and be tortured or-or worse!" he exclaimed, turning away from the sergeant, who looked just about as distraught as he felt. He stopped and sighed, 'I apologise, Andre _,_ " he said, standing still a moment, "I did not mean to yell at you,"

"Oh that's alright, Louis," the sergeant said, "why my mom always yelled at me when she got mad, even though it wasn't my fault. I remember this one time-"

"Carter." Kinch said, from the bottom bunk, his notepad in hand, pencil tucked behind his ear, trying in vain to come up with some plan to find their CO and their friend before it was too late, but finding that not knowing who they were taken by, or where to, was a real mountain to overcome. Though the staff sergeant did not want to contemplate what 'too late' might mean.

"Uh, sorry Kinch," Carter replied, looking bashful, the momentary light in his eyes dulled down again,

"This is ridiculous! We simply must do something! Colonel Hogan would not sit by if we were captured!" LeBeau exclaimed,

"Think we don't know that?" Kinch snapped, throwing the book at the office door as a wave of anger born of their defencelessness washed over him, "you think I, of all people, could forget how much we owe the Colonel?"

"What are you just  _sitting_  there for then?" LeBeau asked, pointing an accusing finger, "you're meant to be in charge now,"

"Oh shut up!" Kinch snapped back, springing to his feet, "I'd like to see you do better," he replied, his voice taking on a menacing tone,

"Oh yeah?" LeBeau asked, his mocking tone making Kinch narrow his eyes,

"Yeah! Why doesn't all four feet of you come over here and say that?" he asked,

"Any time,  _âne_ ,"

"What did you just call me?"

"If you had any culture you would know,"

"You sayin' something about the way I was brought up?

Carter could only stand and watch from the side as the remaining command crew began to fight with each other, before he finally kicked himself into action and inserted himself between Kinch and LeBeau before their increasingly aggressive tone came to blows,

"Guys!" he yelled, pushing them both away from each other and they were momentarily too stunned to say anything. It didn't last for long,

"What the hell, Carter?" Kinch exclaimed, rounding on the young sergeant at the same time that LeBeau yelled,

" _L'enfer_ Andrew?"

"I HAVE A PLAN!" Carter suddenly burst out.

Silence fell in the office, as only their harsh breaths could be heard and they took a moment to actually realise what they had just done.

Kinch was the first to fall into the chair at the desk, letting his head drop into his hands, closing his eyes as shame hit him. His colonel, the first commanding officer who ever acknowledged him as a human being rather than a useful tool, could be sitting in a prison being tortured. Peter, snappy, thorny, light-fingered but brilliant and funny Peter may be with him or could have been taken somewhere else for the Gestapo brand of  _questioning –_ and here he was, fighting with his team.

He looked up to see Louis wore much the same embarrassed and regretful expression as he did. They made eye contact, and then LeBeau was walking towards him, and dragged him somewhat unwillingly into a hug, " _Je suis désolé,_ I am sorry Kinch," he muttered, as he moved away and Kinch sighed,

"Me too, buddy," Kinch replied and Carter frowned at both of them,

"I have a plan," he repeated and they both looked over to him, "if you're done being mean to each other, I think we can get the Colonel and Peter back," he said and LeBeau leant against the desk to face the munitions man fully,

"Anything will do right now, Andre, even one of  _your_ plans," he sighed and beside him, Kinch nodded, some of the frustration he had felt before released, his mind starting to function once more. The sergeant seemed unperturbed by their lack of faith as he said,

"We're going into Gestapo headquarters tonight to get the Colonel and Peter out,"

"That won't work, Andrew," Kinch replied, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, "we've been over this, we don't know where they are,"

"They're being held in Stuttheim," Carter stated then, and the other two stared at him,

"How do you figure that?" Kinch asked, his tone incredulous,

"I was at the Kommandant's window before and he received a call from a Major Kessel or something. So I went into the tunnels and I radioed the underground, and they said he's head of Gestapo in Stuttgard, and he happened to be passing by here today, because they spotted him at the Hauserhof, so I figured it makes sense that he was the one who picked the Colonel and Peter up, although I still don't know how he knew they'd be there. I would have come to you first, but you looked like you didn't want to be disturbed, so I checked it out myself. All those lessons you gave me are really paying off, Kinch!" he finished with a small, hesitant smile, as if he was not sure he had done the right thing.

LeBeau and Kinch exchanged a shocked expression with each other. Sometimes they forgot that Carter was so much more intelligent than his clumsiness and forgetfulness made them believe,

"That's brilliant, Carter," Kinch said with a grin, and LeBeau walked over and clapped him on the shoulder, "Let's get started,  _mon ami_!" he added and Carter smiled, glad for once, he didn't screw it up, almost glowing under the praise of his fellows.

He moved to the door quickly, and, hearing the others follow him, headed for the tunnels.

They had a rescue to plan.

* * *

**_Chapter three should be coming soon!_   _I'm trying for weekly updates._** **_Thanks for all the support so far, and for your kind words, hope I can keep it up, I'm having a ball writing with these guys. Let me know what you think!_ **

**_Aza_ **


	3. Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's late. By a whole week. Forgive me oh merciful readers.  
> I was swamped by uni.  
> Point is, this gets a little painful. Sorry not sorry. Love ya!
> 
> I also didn't realise this was posted as a draft and not on the work. I'm so sorry.

**Chapter 3 - Hurts**

**_Take me to church_ **

**_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_ **

**_I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife_ **

**_Offer me that deathless death_ **

**_Good God, let me give you my life_ **

**_-Take me to Church, Hozier_ **

Hogan barely managed not to drop his corporal on the cold, dirty floor of the cell he was shoved into it with unnecessary force after an exhausting three storey climb through a well maintained and thoroughly Nazi building. Through sheer willpower, the colonel managed to retain his balance and only the blood that was beginning to cover his hands and his chest, where he cradled Newkirk protectively, stopped him from saying something that might get him shot. One of them needed to be fully aware.

Instead he turned around with a glare, the floorboards creaking underneath him, to look at the major, silhouetted in the light from the corridor outside,

"You'll stay in here, Colonel. Don't bother trying to escape,"

Major Kessel turned so that he was better illuminated in the light, as Hogan stood within the dark cell, to allow the sergeant he had brought with him to bring in an oil lamp and a loaf of bread, sitting on a tin plate, "there's water in the barrel," he said, as the sergeant placed the items on the ground,

"Your hospitality is incredible," Hogan replied, his arms beginning to ache from the load they carried, but not wanting to show the Major that he was tiring,

"You'll run out of wise-cracks soon, Colonel," the Major replied, "there will be guards posted on this door every hour of the day, and the only window is fifteen feet off the ground. If you do decide to jump, colonel, at least kill your  _precious_  corporal first, it would be easier for the both of you,"

With that, Kessel turned and walked out, slamming the steel door behind him, the darkness Hogan was thrown into disorientating after the bright, harsh lighting of the corridor. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust, then carefully turned towards where he had spotted the only bed, against the wall to the left, the corporal silent in his arms.

The ride had been long, and Peter had alternated between pained consciousness and then spells where his body simply couldn't take it anymore, where he lapsed into fitful unconsciousness. Hogan meanwhile had alternated between absolutely furious while the corporal was conscious and positively terrified at the lack of response when Newkirk did fall silent. He wasn't even able to observe where they were because the windows had curtains and he was jammed between his corporal and the gestapo man. The front section was blocked off by still more curtains, damn the gestapo forethought.

_Not that escape is an option anyway._

"We'll just lay here for a bit, huh?" Hogan said aloud, not expecting a response and thus startled almost into dropping the man  _again_  when Newkirk mumbled, in a raspy voice, "Anywhere…that's no' a bleeding…car,", as the colonel settled him onto the one tiny cot, on his knees next to him,

"Hiya, Peter," Hogan said, placing a hand on the man's good shoulder for comfort as the RAF corporal sucked in a painful breath,

"Where…" Peter began, but Hogan placed a gentle hand across his lips,

"No talking, even though I know that's damn near impossible for you," he said, trying to ignore the way his heart chilled a couple more degrees at the absence of a sharp response from Newkirk, who only managed a small smile. His eyes fluttered closed and Hogan decided he had better get the man some water before he passed out again.

Getting to his stiff legs with some difficulty, the Colonel walked quickly to the lamp, grabbing it off the floor and scouted the room for the water barrel, finding it under the window in the far right corner of the room.

 _It could be contaminated with anything,_ he thought, as he pulled the damp wooden lid off. It didn't smell too fresh and as he dipped a hand in and brought it to his lips, it definitely didn't taste fresh but it was all they had. Resigning himself, Hogan grabbed the rusty cup that had been sitting on top, and filled it to the brim, drinking it quickly. Dipping it in again, when he had finished, he filled it half way, then turned back to Peter, not having to go far, as the cell was only about two meters wide.

"Peter," he said, dropping down into a crouch, and waited until bleary eyes were fixed on his own, "you need to drink," he prompted, the flickering light from the oil lamp casting patterns across the pale face in front of him, blue eyes barely catching any of the light,

"mm…thirsty," Newkirk agreed, and Hogan placed the cup down on the floor. Then, he gently eased an arm around the corporal's shoulders, knowing that he would hate needing the help, but also knowing that without it, he wasn't going to be able to sit. He levered the corporal up, and then, realising he'd never be able to hold Newkirk and the cup in this position, changed, so that he slid onto the mattress himself, his back against the wall, with the corporal lying sideways across his lap, trying his best to avoid jarring the corporal's shoulder.

He stretched for the cup and managed to snag it off the floor, then, propping the corporal up by bringing his own leg up to act as a backrest, he brought the cup to Peter's lips. The corporal drank it slowly, and the colonel was patient, waiting until the whole cup was gone before putting it to the side,

"Hungry?" he asked, his voice quiet as a draft blew through the room and Newkirk shivered,

"Sleepy," he replied instead, and Hogan couldn't find a single damned reason to move when the corporal brought himself closer, wincing at the movement, but resting his head against the colonel's shoulder, "hurts…so much," Newkirk whispered and Hogan swallowed, the guilt and anger he had momentarily buried coming back with full force.

_Sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry…_

He brought his (shaking) left hand up and ran it through the corporal's hair, the soft black locks slightly longer than regulation, because they had to delay the haircut a week ago when one of their plans changed and hadn't gotten around to it again. The colonel was entirely aware that this was hardly a normal thing for him to do, but they were both exhausted, and Newkirk had actually snuggled in closer when he started playing with his hair, so he did it again, the strands warm as Peter's breath against his neck.

_Damn regulations. Damn expectations. I'll be whatever he needs me to be._

Hogan looked down to Newkirk and sighed.

_I wish the boys would hurry up. I dunno how much longer our favourite Brit can keep fighting._

He let his hand rest at the back of Newkirk's neck, where the hair was short but soft, the heat from the man's skin warming his own frozen hands, and let his head fall back against the wall, only his thoughts and the steady sound of the rattling window for company.

* * *

It was decided that night was the best time to move, after roll call, so Carter, LeBeau and Kinch took the several hours they had before roll call to prepare. LeBeau went over the uniforms for himself and Carter, not being as adept as Newkirk but still good enough to fix the sleeve that was slightly loose and tighten the buttons on the coats.

They collectively decided not to inform London of what they wanted to do, just in case the answer was no, accompanied by an order not to rescue their comrades, who were being held more than an hour away from their camp. At least this way they would not be disobeying any direct orders.

Kinch was fiddling with the radio in the tunnel. It was another mission that he had to sit out on, because a black man did not belong in gestapo uniform and the usual struggle of wanting to go with his friends and knowing he couldn't was ten times as bad tonight. He resisted the urge to do anything so childish as slam his headphones down onto the table in a fit of pique, as once again, he felt that he was utterly useless at times when the team needed help the most,

_And all 'cause I'm too black._

Kinch sighed, just a Carter arrived behind him,

"Any messages?" Carter asked and Kinch jumped, not having heard the sergeant walk in,

"No buddy," he replied, and he saw Carter's hopeful expression drop.

They had maintained a small hope that maybe the underground heard Papa Bear and one of his cubs were captured and went to rescue them, but so far, all the units they were in contact with were turning up nothing.

"It's up to us," Kinch continued as Carter pulled himself up onto the table next to the staff sergeant, his expression serious as he said,

"You'll need to manage ol' blood and guts when we're gone, he'll be real mad once he realises the Colonel and Peter are gone," he said and Kinch nodded,

"I'd rather be with you," Kinch replied quietly, and Carter was silent a moment. Then he tilted his head to the side, his right eye crinkling slightly, in that way of his when he was thinking on a problem,

"But if you were with us, who'd be here?" he asked and Kinch raised an eyebrow,

"Oh, only the whole camp," he said, unable to keep the sarcasm out his voice,

"No I mean, out of us, someone has to be here," Carter insisted, ignoring the look Kinch was giving him,

"How do you figure?"

"Well…it's kinda like my grandma used to say. She'd say, Andy! You remember this! If you're someone who's anyone, you'll always have someone waiting at home for you, and if they're waiting for you, then you'd better love them like family, boy, cause only family bothers," Carter gave a small laugh, "and it's weird you know, 'cause it's the middle of the war and everything, but it's like we're family. I think so anyway," he threw a glance at his fellow sergeant, and was pleased to see that his ramblings had for once, not made anyone mad.

Kinch had a smile on his face, and the radio man felt as if it was thawing some of the worry that had gripped him since LeBeau had come back with the nightmare they were currently in,

"Andrew," he started, but found he didn't have the words to express what he was feeling, so he settled with a warm hand on the young man's shoulder, receiving a big smile in return,

"We'll get them back," Carter assured him, and for the first time that day, Kinch allowed himself to feel that maybe it wasn't so unlikely after all.

* * *

Roll call arrived, cold and on a night of the new moon, the stars glittering above the fog from their breaths as they stood in the frigid night air.

The count was done, and Klink sounded the alarm with a few choice insults hurled at Schultz, ordering Kinch into his office for a good half hour of pointless questions before letting the man out again.

By the time he got back to the barracks, LeBeau and Carter were dressed and holstering their guns, turning to face his grim expression,

"Be careful out there, the guard is doubled and every dog is out on patrol," he said, "I'm afraid nothing would convince Klink to do otherwise,"

"It's okay,  _mon frère,_  we have been through worse," LeBeau said, patting Kinch on the arm, as he did up his belt, "how do we look?"

"Like real monsters," Kinch replied and the little Frenchman pretended to be insulted while Carter smiled,

" _Danke, mein Freund,"_ the munitions man replied in German and Kinch rolled his eyes,

"Get going, the both of you," he said hitting the switch on the bunk, the trapdoor opening with its usual click,

" _Oui,_  take care and keep Wilson ready, just in case,"

"Good luck," Kinch added as the two disappeared down the ladder,

 _And God be with you,_ he added in his head, turning to his own bunk for a fitful night of not sleeping.

* * *

Newkirk felt like every nerve in his shoulder was being tortured with a branding iron with every breath he took, as he came to for the nth time, unable to remember when he had dropped off yet again.

He was groggy, and his head felt like it had recently been stuffed with cotton, and his thoughts we jumpy, half formed and bewildering. Keeping completely still, with his eyes closed, he tried to analyse where he was. He could feel a lumpy something under his legs, which were considerably cooler that his top half, lower than his torso and head. His upper half was elevated and warm, and, he realised with a jerk, was being held, definitely on top of another body.

_The guvnor?_

Newkirk's eyes opened in surprise to find a stubble covered chin and pale neck in his vision as he twisted his head slightly upwards, the image slightly distorted by the wavering of their light source. The strong jaw was shadowed and from his angle the colonel's soft cheek bones prevented Newkirk from seeing his eyes. The colonel smelled like that light aftershave he liked to use, and, Newkirk, in his state, found himself wanting to move in closer, bringing his head further in, burying has face into the crook of the man's shoulder, the change of position taking the load off his wound, pressing him into the man from the hip up. He felt himself relax in the man's embrace, and he could not bring himself to care very much that the Colonel might think this was odd. In that moment, when he had never known so much pain as this, the proximity and the familiarity was a soothing balm on frayed nerves.

The corporal was startled out of his justifications when a gentle hand ran across the back of his neck and through his hair, the warmth and pressure welcome, the Colonel's voice rumbling through his chest as he said,

"Hello,"

Newkirk tried to respond but found that his voice wasn't altogether functional, and instead ended up making a small noise, cutting off with a cough that tore his shoulder apart, and had him groaning aloud,

"Hey, hey, easy," Hogan said, his tone changing from warm to worried and Newkirk wished he could see his expression, to tell him not to worry, but he didn't have the energy to move that far away or to form the sentence, "I'll get some more water," Hogan said, and the corporal stayed silent as the Colonel manoeuvred him with great care onto the mattress. Newkirk couldn't stop the involuntary whine though, as the movement started a new wave of pain, the loss of warmth almost equally unbearable,

"Guv'nor," he mumbled, allowing his eyes to slide shut as tremors ran through his body and he wilfully forced himself not to vocalise the fire in his shoulder. It was like being cut open a hundred times, scalded and ripped in half all at once, and Newkirk could barely think straight. He wasn't sure it was asking the colonel to come back and hold him or if he was begging for release.

It could have been seconds or it could have been hours later that the Colonel returned, and lifted his head up.

The water was cool and welcome, soothing the thirst he didn't know he had and he drank it all, the metallic tang of the cup lingering in his mouth. He heard the colonel place the cup on the floor with a muted clang, when he had finished, and heard himself mumble,

"Don't leave,"

The colonel stilled next to him, and for a moment he feared that the man had left after all, not wanting to stay with him.

Then the warmth was back as the Colonel lifted him up again, and brought him back into the position he had been in, his injured shoulder well out of the way, allowing him to curl up on the senior officer's lap.

Newkirk sighed as the Colonel returned his hand to his hair, and felt sleep lure him under again.

* * *

Colonel Hogan felt his heart stutter as Newkirk brought his head to rest in the crook of his neck once more, and felt the corporal's breath wash over him as he sighed when his hand came up almost automatically, playing with Peter's hair once more.

He had been startled out of his light sleep when he had felt Peter move and he wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep exactly. He glanced at his watch, angling it to better catch the light.

_Three thirty in the morning. Goddamn._

He sighed, knowing there was little chance he would fall asleep again. Not after that little episode anyway. Not after the whispered words calling him, asking him to stay, the vulnerability in his otherwise rock steady corporal.

_God, how I wish I could do something other than sit here and be useless._

The commanding officer was disturbed by how much pain Newkirk was in. He could tell from the way the man reacted when he had moved him back onto the mattress and by the fact that the corporal was all but cuddling with him. He was never as touchy as when he got sick, and rarely made contact with you unless he was drunk or very happy.

The colonel felt the worry coil in his belly, pausing in his movements as his fingers brushed over an old scar on the back of Peter's neck, his thoughts flying in every direction,

_How many more scars will he have before we're through?_

The colonel sighed,

_Is what we're doing even worth this? This…_

He looked down at Peter and the blood soaked shirt on his shoulder, the shallow breaths he was taking, the blood that coated his own pants and caked under his fingernails,

 _Is he worth sacrificing for anything?_  Hogan thought, knowing what the answer should be, but found the only answer he could come up with was,

_Never._

_Not even if it meant ending the war right now._

And as he sat in that dark, cold cell, he suddenly found that fact to be resonating with the truth, echoing like the great bells of cathedrals that lay in rubble, destroyed in the bombings. It was as sudden as the moon's appearance from behind a cloudbank on a treacherous night, but for the first time this fact was as clear as the beautiful German crystal chandeliers in their great ballrooms and it was as beautiful as it was frightening.

For Peter, he would throw it all away, if it meant the man, his friend, his thief and pickpocket, conman and criminal was safe. Because Peter belonged to him and was a part of his life as sure as breathing was. He was here to stay and sometimes, when they talk about the future, Rob could see him and Peter together, if not the whole team, because some things last longer and are worth more than an assignment or mission.

_Dangerous._

And it  _was_  dangerous. He had suspected this-this  _weakness_  for a while now, but faced with the reality of the situation – such that his corporal may never make it out of here – he found that without a doubt, he would do anything for this man.

Maybe it was the stress from the work they did, maybe it was the extended proximity, but if they weren't rescued by tomorrow, Hogan found himself contemplating giving some information away to get Peter help, against his will, against the oaths he had taken at the start of all this, yet in total accordance with his heart, and he felt like he was being pulled in two different directions.

_Traitor._

Hogan felt a slightly hysterical sound escape him, half-way between a laugh and a sob before he quieted himself. His heart was thundering in his chest, he felt like every principal he had built himself upon was threating to crash down around him, his emotions were loud and confusing,

_What am I thinking? Could I do that to other innocents? Other fathers, mothers, brothers, sweethearts…how can I?_

Peter made another soft sound in his arms, and his lips brushed against Hogan's neck as he shifted in discomfort.

The thundering in his chest turned quickly to ice cold dread as he contemplated the thought of not another sound ever coming from those lips, the light behind the bonfire eyes forever gone, the laughter, the spirit doused like a lamp no longer needed.

_How can I not?_

Breathing had never needed so much concentration before, as Hogan forced himself to draw in deeper breaths, even as he felt like he was drowning.

He needed to get it together.

Okay, so he was ready to tell the gestapo whatever they want for Peter. But Peter was not going to die. They were going to get out of here. He was the commanding officer of the best damn unit this side of the channel. He was  _not_ going to give in to panic.

The colonel breathed again, closing his eyes to the field of blue and dull red in front of him, trying not to remember that Peter normally smelt like earth and tobacco, not blood and fear and death, but failing gloriously as their long afternoons and even longer nights came back to him. All the times he had laughed with Peter, all the times the corporal's quick thinking and quicker fingers had saved them all.

He could deal with this.

He was thoroughly compromised, but he was not going to give in to this panic, this fear.

 _If I had been a better leader he never would have gotten hurt in the first place,_  he added to himself, the ever present guilt rearing its head once more, adding another ribbon of self-doubt to his tangled, knotted emotions, making breathing difficult again.

Suddenly the door banged open, dragging the Colonel to the present.

Hogan winced at the bright light while Peter started at the sound, the surprised sound quickly turning sharp and then into a moan of pain.

Hogan steadied the corporal, even though he was unable to see anything, waiting for his eyes to adjust, holding onto the man as he panted for breath,

"So this is the famous Colonel Hogan," a voice said from the door and the Colonel paused,

_I recognise that voice…_

"Ja, mein General," replied another voice, and Hogan opened his eyes to see two blurry officers walk into the room, followed by one of Kessel's lackeys.

The Colonel schooled his features as his eyes finally fully adjusted and watched the  _Abwher_  intelligence officers in front of him, keeping the recognition off his face.

Carter was dressed as a general, and walked around the cell, his long coat billowing behind him, and his boots clicking sharply on the floor as he entered,

"Now, private, you will transfer these prisoners at once!" he yelled, pointing at the two men on the bunk, inadvertently causing Newkirk to curl closer to the colonel and the colonel to force himself not to reach out and comfort the no doubt disorientated man,

"But-but-but  _Herr General,_ we cannot! Only by order-"

"You dare to question the  _Abwher_!" LeBeau, dressed as a very convincing General's aide cut in, surprisingly menacing despite his height,

"No-no-no sir but-"

"Then do as I command!" Carter yelled, slapping his glove across the private's face. The man looked momentarily petrified, but Hogan watched with dismay as he shook his head, and held his ground,

"You must take it up with Major Johann Kessel," he repeated and Carter turned away, a shadow of worry crossing his face. The colonel tried to send a subtle reassuring look the sergeant's way, but wasn't sure it reached him in this light.

There was silence as Carter paced, and Hogan could tell he was trying to think of a way to solve their problem. Finally he stopped and walked over to the bunk, glaring down at Hogan and Newkirk,

"Why is this man sitting like this? Do these American pigs always act like this?" he asked, pointing at Newkirk and Hogan had to admire the amount of condescension Carter put into his tone.

The private scurried forward from where he had been standing at the back of cell, "answer him!" he demanded of Hogan, so the Colonel looked up,

"This man is shot," he said and Carter sniffed,

"So?" he asked,

"So, this is the only way to keep him comfortable, he has not had any medical attention,"

Carter glared at the Colonel then turned sharply and walked away slowly, as if thinking,

"Mein General?" LeBeau asked, his eyes flicking between Hogan and Carter as if not sure that his friend was playing this right, but equally unsure if intervening would achieve anything positive,

"We do not need a dead prisoner, we can't take him back in a box," Carter said, turning and lifting his chin up,

"But mein general-" the private started again, however LeBeau cut him off before he could even begin,

"Do not interrupt the general!" he yelled and the man all but cowered against the wall,

"Get him medical help," Carter ordered, and on the bunk, Hogan felt a small flare of hope,

"Mein General-"

"DO NOT ARGUE! Once more and you'll need a new pair of winter gloves, private!" Carter screamed and the private decided loyalty and following standing orders simply wasn't worth a trip to the Russian front.

Let Kessel yell at the  _Abwehr_  later. He would give the prisoner help if it meant the angry general and his tiny aide would just leave him be.

"I shall get the doctor, but I cannot release the prisoner," the Private said, hoping that Kessel would realise how incredibly brave he was being, standing up to this general. There could even be a promotion in this for him.

Carter frowned, "very well," he said, realising that tonight, he was not getting Colonel Hogan home, "but we will be back for him," he said and the private nodded,

"Follow me, please," he said, and walked out.

Carter and LeBeau's gaze quickly switched to the Colonel, and their CO threw them a small smile, hoping it would convey his gratitude at what they tried to do.

Carter allowed himself one last glance at Newkirk's still form before the steel door was shut.

He and LeBeau waited until they saw the doctor arrive themselves, before deciding they had chanced it enough tonight. With a sharp heil Hitler, they walked out and into the staff car they had borrowed from the motor pool.

Kicking the engine into gear, LeBeau drove them out of the gates.

It wasn't until they had parked it less than a mile from camp and scouted their way through the forest and into their tunnels that they allowed the tension to drain from their bodies, the trap door above them closing as they climbed down into the well-lit rooms.

"There you guys are!" Kinch's exclamation startled both the operatives and LeBeau managed to maintain a glare for all of five seconds, before he actually took in Kinch's worried expression and the bloodshot eyes, "You've been gone for nearly three fucking hours!" Kinch added, resorting to swearing as an outlet for his frustration. He had practically worn a new tunnel into their pre-existing tunnels with his pacing.

"What happened?" the Frenchman asked, looking curious and apologetic at the same time, "we had to take several detours to avoid checkpoints on the way back," he said, tying to explain their delay, "we weren't purposely tyring to be late,"

"Hochstetter arrived, and he's been prowling the camp. Gestapo agents are everywhere and all the guards are on high alert!" Kinch growled, allowing himself to relax as he took in the thoroughly unharmed state of his friends, "and I know," he added in softer tones, hoping the guys would understand he wasn't actually mad at them. He just didn't think he could handle the rest of the team leaving here alone, if anything had to have happened to them. He would never have survived.

"Well gee, it's lucky we got back when we did, isn't it?" Carter asked, looking momentarily terrified as he unbuckled the many layers of the German uniform and lead the way further into the tunnels,

"Where's Colonel Hogan and Peter?" Kinch asked, "will they surrender at the gates?" he prompted, following behind the other two.

His heart sank as they both froze, and exchanged a glance, "We couldn't get them," Carter admitted in a small voice,

"Pierre is terribly injured," LeBeau added, his voice betraying how defeated he felt, the anger and the horror of the scene that the Colonel and his best friend presented coming back to him, more or less tattooed into his memory.

It had been atrocious for both the corporal and the sergeant to act as if they felt nothing at seeing the state their comrades, their friends, were in as they convinced the private to let them into the cell. The Colonel had been holding Pierre so protectively, and the corporal had been so unresponsive, LeBeau had felt like a part of him would rather die than ever bear witness to that again. Carter had felt like his entire act might crumble as he stomped around and pretended to be the sadistic, cruel general that he really was not. It was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. He wanted to see Peter's face, to see if his friend was okay, to make sure all that blood was simply a lot of blood and not the sign of something much too terrible to contemplate.

As they walked into the changing area, Kinch sighed and rested against the wall as the other two men changed, "look, we tried. We can try again, it doesn't mean it's over. What went wrong?" he asked,

"They wouldn't release them without Major Johann Kessel's say-so and the apparent standing order was that no-one except him was to approach the prisoners," Carter explained,

"And they wouldn't even yield to a general, huh?" Kinch asked, frowning,

"No, all we got was a tiny chance to see them," LeBeau spat, letting his frustration out by throwing his uniform onto the rack. He took a certain pleasure as it missed and fell on the floor instead, the swastika's red bright against the dirt, "suspicious bastards," he added, glaring at the uniform rack in general, as if it were to blame for their current situation, then suddenly burst out, "they were in this tiny, stinking cell, and it was freezing too! The cot looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a century and they were covered in blood! God, those  _bastards!_ " LeBeau threw his hands in the air as he aimed a kick for the table and huffed,

"It's my fault," Carter said, picking LeBeau's uniform off the ground after he finished hanging his own up, reasoning that Newkirk would have their hides when he came back and found his hard work on the floor, "it was my stupid plan. And now we could have gotten them locked up for good. The colonel had a look like my horse did just before my dad had to shoot him when he had broken his leg," Carter added, his movements stopping as his mind dragged him back to another time of grief,

"Don't be stupid," Kinch said, turning his frown on the young sergeant instead, "at least you had a plan. It would have worked. It seems like Kessel is the root of all our problems," he added and LeBeau nodded as he dragged his torn red jumper on,

"Oui. If I caught sight of the pig I would say hello with a knife,"

"And then promptly get shot," Kinch rebutted dryly, "enough of that. If we can think of a way to get at  _him_  then maybe we can get the Colonel and Peter back,"

"How though?" Carter asked as he buttoned his jumpsuit up, back to looking like the sergeant they all knew and loved rather than the frankly scary German that he made,

"That's the question of the war," LeBeau muttered, nodding and climbing into his pants, grimacing at the new hole that he discovered in the shin region.

There was silence as the men finished dressing, and, after a last look at the radio, they headed up the ladder and into the dark barracks.

Forgoing their bunks, for there was no sleep for them tonight, they made their way into the Colonel's office, illuminated by the searchlights that swept across their barracks every so often. They fell into their customary places, Carter on the bottom bunk, Kinch at the desk chair and LeBeau on top of the table, all them keenly aware of the missing presence of their CO and their friend.

They sat in silence for a while more, then LeBeau's head snapped up, "Guys," he started, a cautious optimism starting to build as his mind whirred with the idea he had stumbled upon,

"What?" Kinch asked, picking up on the tone, while Carter just looked confused,

"I might have it," LeBeau said, "what if we were to discredit the Major?" he looked between his friends,

"What do you mean?" Kinch asked, "how?"

"Well…what if we showed him to be an allied spy or something?" LeBeau was getting excited now, "something like the Colonel did with that German plant we had! Then they'd have to release all his prisoners to Hochstetter, and then because it would happen here, Klink would know what happened, and Burkhalter would find out! Then the general distrust between the Luftwaffe and the Gestapo would work so that the Colonel and Pierre were transferred back here!"

Kinch and Carter both absorbed this plan,

"How in God's name do we even pull that off?" Kinch asked, voicing his doubts at the same time as Carter said,

"That's great!"

LeBeau looked between them again and pushed off the desk to walk between them, "we get our beloved Kommandant to – to hold a conference!" LeBeau was watching his own feet as he paced and planned, "yes!" he agreed with himself, "On managing prisons or something, and the gestapo would be invited because he means to apply this to everyone,"

"How do we get him to agree though?" Carter asked,

"We have Berlin headquarters stationary," Kinch cut in, "we can pretend it's mandatory, send one to all the commanders in the general area,"

"Yeah!" LeBeau said, his eyes bright, "if it's an order from Berlin they'll come. Once Kessel is here….well it's only a matter of tricking him into believing that we are conspirators, but changing everything at the last minute so that he looks completely crazy, and we look innocent," the French corporal finished.

Kinch thought for a moment. This was a mad plan. So much hinged on no one double checking and the natural tension that existed between in the branches in the German armed forces.

Then he thought back to the looks that flashed across his teammates faces as they recalled the Colonel and Peter, and he remembered their description of how they had found them. Anything was better than letting Hogan and Newkirk rot in a prison, "it's worth a shot," Kinch said and Carter nodded,

"Yeah. But it'll take a while won't it?" he asked and some of the excitement in LeBeau's eyes dulled,

"You're right. At least a couple of days before everything is organised,"

"Do Peter and the Colonel have a couple of days?" Kinch asked, looking at the other two, willing to trust their judgement,

"Well Andre was very clever in ordering a doctor to see Pierre," LeBeau said, "so the immediate threat is gone,"

"Excellent thinking Carter," Kinch commended, and the sergeant looked bashful,

"Oh you know, it seemed like the right thing to do,"

"In the meantime the gestapo could do anything to the two of them," LeBeau said,

"It's the best plan we have. If we start now we can get the ball rolling sooner, and get them home sooner,"

"I never dreamed that one day home would be a prisoner of war camp," LeBeau said, slightly wistfully as they walked back out into the main barracks,

"Sometimes God gives you family in weird times," Carter replied, in a rare show of outward faith.

The other two looked at him in surprise in the brief flash of light from the searchlights,

"Yes  _mon ami,_ " LeBeau finally replied, laughing slightly, "family,"

"I suppose we'd better start getting used to that term," Kinch added, as he reached down and pulled the correct stationary out from their log.

It was going to be a gruelling few days but they all silently agreed that no matter what, they would put their adopted family back together, piece by piece.

* * *

In the cold cell several tens of kilometres away, Hogan allowed himself to truly relax for the first time as the surgeon finished up on the wound in Peter's shoulder.

The doctor had applied a local anaesthetic and sewn the wound cleanly and quickly, sterilising and mending the torn skin, lying Peter flat on the ground, the corporal mostly unconscious. The whole procedure had taken about an hour, and Hogan could feel his back starting to ache from the position he had taken up on the cot, watching the procedure, blanching at the sheer amount of blood the corporal had lost. The dotor had also seen to it that a pint of blood from the hospital be brought in by tomorrow the latest, to help boost Newkirk's system.

The doctor finished with an injection of penicillin to stave off any infection and then another of morphine for the pain. Informing Hogan he would come back tomorrow to check on the corporal's progress and administer the blood, he nodded politely and left the room along with the bright lamp and his armed escort.

Thanking the heavens for small mercies, the Colonel moved and picked Peter off the floor, bringing the limp body back to the cot. Pulling Peter onto his lap he pushed the corporal's fringe off his forehead, his heated skin and the slight colour in his cheeks the most reassuring thing the colonel had seen for what felt like an eternity of broiling worry. He manoeuvred his corporal back into his jacket, the man expressing no pain for the first time in hours, as Hogan rearranged him so that he was curled up on his lap as before.

He could have lain the man out straight, but the temperature was dropping and there were no blankets, and far too many cracks in the walls letting the icy air into the room in cutting streams.

He was warm, he'd keep the corporal warm, and that was his story, never mind that he liked the proximity and liked that for the first time he was truly seeing his corporal unguarded and open.

He didn't know what tomorrow would bring but for now, he was going to take the little rest that was offered while it was there for him.

Thank the heavens for small mercies indeed, but more importantly, thank the heavens for giving his Peter another chance.

* * *

_**I know it's late. The only excuse I have is university. It isn't enough I know. Have mercy on this poor writer oh great and merciful readers.** _

_**And much thanks for sticking with this. I will definitely try to update more regularly.** _

_**All feedback welcome!  
** _

_**Till next time,** _

_**Aza** _

 


	4. Silent

_**WARNING: Violence and bad language abounds. Sorry not sorry.** _

* * *

 

**Chapter 4 - Silent**

**_I was lost, on my knees, o_ ** **_n the eve, of defeat_ **

**_As I choked, back the tears, t_ ** **_here's a silent scream, no-one could hear_ **

**_So far away, from everything, you know is true_ **

**_Something inside, that makes you do what you got to do._ **

-  ** _Bells of Freedom, Bon Jovi_**

 

_Hogan stumbled backwards into the room, blind, confused. What was going on, where was Peter? Where was the light? What…_

_A soft touch across his shoulder._

_Suddenly the room was taking on some sort of shape…_

_A light brush of a hand across his lower back, lingering, loving, warm._

_Colours, swirling, blue, red, green, white, and then black._

_The brush of lips against his in the stillness. Electricity from it, sparking gold and white and beautiful, running through his entire being, pleasure, wanting more._

_Who…?_

_Bright sapphire somewhere, glinting in the darkness._

_Silence._

_Honey-warm laughter._

_The smell of tobacco, almond aftershave, pleasant, comforting._

_Fear. Blood._

_Then blackness._

 

* * *

 

The colonel woke with a start, the cold stagnant cell reaching him as he drew in shaky breaths and realised it, whatever  _it_  was, was a dream.

_What the hell,_ the colonel thought, his mind spinning and his heart racing, as he blinked in the weak sunlight filtering through the rather colonial style but dirty windows he hadn't noticed last night when they had arrived.

_That was strange._

He glanced down to his lap where Peter was resting, his breathing even, the blood on his clothes now starkly obvious in the ray of light that fell across him, but all of it brown and old. His cheeks were slightly pink, his lips dry and chapped, hair a complete mess, no doubt from where he been lying but also Hogan's ministrations with his hair. The colour in Peter's cheeks was not altogether reassuring though, as Hogan gently laid a hand on the left, and nearly jerked back from the unexpected heat. Hogan just hoped it was an aftereffect of the operation and not the mark of an infection taking hold of Peter's system.

Feeling a little embarrassed in the stark light of day as he realised that this really  _was_ a compromising position, Hogan decided that he really didn't have any more of an excuse to be clinging onto Newkirk like the man would fall to pieces if he didn't, as he was obviously not shaking anymore. And as for the part of him that felt like he needed the security of it - that part of him was safely tucked into the  _do not touch_  part of his mind, that dark, deep place in the back, dusty and unused – that was going to remain exactly where it was.

He was not going to remind himself of his little breakdown last night.

It was done with. His men had come, and no doubt they had another plan of action. They were young, resourceful and well equipped. There was, after all, a reason he had hired them. They did their jobs splendidly.

_Then why the nagging worry in the pit of your stomach, Rob?_  He asked himself as he gently moved Newkirk onto the mattress and got to his feet, nearly falling flat onto his face as abused and unused muscles protested the sudden weight bearing activities he demanded of them.

He stifled his groan and walked through the pain, stumbling to the other end of the cell, then walking back to the cot and repeating. He needed to be ready to act, just in case. The doctor would be back later hopefully, but if something happened before then it would not do to be sitting here like lambs to the slaughter.

Hogan contemplated the water as his dry mouth and its horrible taste came to his notice, and grimacing, realising he had little choice, he walked over to where he had dropped the cup after giving Newkirk a drink.

Flashes of whispered words in the dark came back to him suddenly as he bent to retrieve the cup and he froze, shutting his eyes and brutally stomping on the protectiveness that had stirred in him last night, the memory of how he had literally held his corporal through the night too able to play with his emotions to be allowed out of their box now. He moved sharply and, with more force than was entirely necessary, dipped his cup into the water, filling it to the top, and, drinking quickly, purposely kept his mind entirely blank until he felt his heart rate settle.

_Hell, you can't keep letting this happen, Rob. Get it together._  He ordered himself, dipping the cup in again. He turned around and walked back to the cot, dropping onto one knee, only now able to observe how filthy the mattress they had been laying on was, covered with tears and blood, sweat and probably even urine.

_And a fresh coat of blood_  he added, looking at the brighter red on the few white patches left.

Doing his best to ignore it, Hogan gently shook Peter awake.

The corporal came to in stages, his eyelids flickering, and only a haze of white coming through. He groaned, and moved slightly, the cotton in his ears allowing a vaguely familiar voice to filter through, muffled and nonsensical. It seemed to be calling him and like a switch had been flipped, both his hearing and sight came back with a start.

He blinked wearily up to a smiling Hogan, and felt like his body was made of lead, feeling it to be heavy and stiff,

"Guv'nor," he croaked and found himself pleased as the smile on Hogan's face turned into a grin. He watched somewhat bewildered as the Colonel leant forward and then he understood that the man was trying to get him to sit up, if the pressure on his back was anything to go by. He attempted to engage his own muscles, but realised they were really not feeling like being co-operative. The colonel was talking the whole time and Peter forced his unfocused mind to listen,

"…thought it was about time to wake you up, lazy bones, can't have you sleeping all day," Hogan finished as he settled Newkirk into a sitting position, hoping his (nervous) babbling wasn't coming across as strange.

The corporal gazed at him through slightly glazed eyes, the blue orbs still struggling to focus. Hogan bit down on his worry as he reminded himself that the doctor had dosed Newkirk enough to last at least twelve hours, he had said, so it shouldn't be surprising that the corporal wasn't quite lucid.

Hogan raised the cup to Newkirk's lips and the corporal drank obediently, his eyes falling closed, turning his head away from the cup after a few more gulps. Hogan took that to mean he didn't want anymore,

"You have to finish this, Peter," Hogan said, reaching and putting the cups at the man's lips again. Newkirk's grumble came as a relief to the Colonel, a touch of the irritation most often associated with their English POW,

"Don't need…" he managed and though the words were slurred and missing the usual sharpness, Hogan smiled for real this time,

"It's not a choice, Corporal," Hogan said and was convinced that Newkirk either didn't understand or didn't want to, when the corporal surprised him by reaching up with an unsteady hand and proceeding to drink it.

Newkirk felt the water's icy chill right through his entire body, but it was waking him up properly now, and he was beginning to take in his surroundings for the first time.

A dark, grey cell, the smell of blood and sweat. The Guv'nor was kneeling next to him and his own body was aching. As he handed the cup back to Hogan, he remembered agony and fire, and pain and comfort, all a blur in his mind.

"Where…we?" he asked, turning as Hogan walked over to the tub and began to wash his face in the rusty old sink next to it,

"Gestapo HQ somewhere in Germany," Hogan replied as the water he splashed onto his face chilled his bones and allowed him to feel every draught in the room as it blew past.

Newkirk nodded, "I don't remember much," he said, analysing Hogan from where he sat as the officer removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His beige shirt was stained all along the front with… _my blood?_  Peter realised with a shock as the memory of his injury came back to him. He glanced towards his right shoulder in some shock.

_That would be the pain…but it's bandaged now…and there's very little pain…ugh…I've never felt so groggy in me life,_

From across the room Newkirk heard a strained chuckle, "yeah well that could be a blessing in disguise," he said, and the corporal wondered at the regretful tone, interlaced with a faint touch of anger and an even fainter hint of loathing.

"Well I'm alright now, Guv," Newkirk replied, hoping to stop the colonel from indulging in whatever negative emotions he may be feeling. The man did like to blame himself,

"The doctor gave you morphine, it will wear off soon I fear," Hogan spoke through his jacket which he had pressed to his face as he walked back to the cot, exposing his still wet face to the cold air as he rolled his sleeves back down and pulled his now damp jacket on,

"'Cor, really?" Newkirk asked, half amused that he was on that wonder drug he had seen make his overbearing and extremely dignified sister turn into a giggling school girl. He chuckled at the memory and caught the worried glance his commander threw his way,

"Yes really," Hogan reached out and placed the back of his hand on Newkirk's forehead, and the corporal felt a flush of embarrassment. He was pretty sure 'look after your useless corporal like a nurse' was not in the Officer's Charter,

"You don't have to-" he began to mumble but the Colonel silenced him with a glare,

"You're still far too warm," the Colonel frowned, pulling his hand away,

"But I'm sitting up an' talking aren't I?" Peter rebutted and watched as his Colonel pursed his lips,

"Yeah," he finally said, and Newkirk wished there was just a little more light in here so he could properly see the Colonel's eyes, as they tended to answer most of the questions that the Colonel would refuse. Newkirk had always wondered how the Colonel got away with anything when his eyes tended to give so much away.

"So what do we do now?" Peter asked, "got some-" the rest of his sentence was muffled and said into the Colonel's hand, which had moved like lightning to clamp down on his mouth.

The colonel would have laughed at how comically surprised Peter looked but didn't take his hand off as he shook his head and put a finger to his lips.

_They might be listening in_ , his look said and he waited for comprehension to dawn and Peter to nod slightly before relaxing and moving away from the British corporal,

"Got some…err….whiskey?" Peter came up with and Hogan rolled his eyes as he answered,

"We're prisoners, not guests," he said, though his smile belayed the harsh sounding words,

"Ah well…these buggers," Newkirk finished off lamely and Hogan stifled a chuckle and shook his head in mock reproval,

"We'll just have to wait around. Last night some big brass came in," Hogan continued instead, "some general by the name of Carterhoff," he sent Newkirk a pointed look and was pleased to see a small but healthy grin appear on the corporal's face,

"Sounds ruddy terrifying,"

"He was," Hogan agreed, sitting himself back down on the bunk, "but he got you treatment," Hogan added and Newkirk left a wave of gratitude sweep through him,

"Well…a Kraut with a heart, I never would have thought-" Newkirk's sentence was cut off as the door banged open and both men winced in the bright light that streamed into the room, their heads snapping to the door in surprise,

"UP!" came the barked order from somewhere above and Hogan found himself being dragged bodily to his feet, still blinded,

"What?" he managed as the grip on his collar shoved him forward and out of the room, tumbling him into the corridor, "Peter!" he exclaimed, blinking as his eyes adjusted and snapping his gaze towards the cell, crouched on the floor of the hallway. With the light from the still-lit corridor, despite the daylight coming in through the windows, Hogan could now see how absolutely filthy their cell was and cringed as he realised Peter had been sitting in there with an open wound. Infection was damn near guaranteed.

Before the colonel could analyse anything else, the door was slammed shut, and regardless of his protesting, he found himself once again being dragged to his feed by the same private whom Carter and LeBeau had accosted last night. He focused on the man who he didn't initially see standing in front of him and a wave of equal parts fear and anger shot through him, setting his nerves on edge,

"Major Kessel," he managed through gritted teeth and the gestapo agent laughed,

"My, my, looks like that God you Americans are always praying to answers at least some of those prayers. The pretty English corporal lives," he said, his voice smooth and oily, sending a horrible feeling down Hogan's back. The Major paced to the right, walking in a circle around Hogan and the private who had released his collar but now had the barrel of his machine gun pressed firmly into Hogan's spine. The brown carpet underfoot muffled his booted footsteps on the cement floor, but did little to take away from the roughly put together cement walls, or the harsh yellow bulbs that hung naked, spaced out along the walkway.

"Looks like it," Hogan replied, keeping his eyes locked on the Major, unsure why the man was assessing him as if some sort of prize, or first class livestock, the many medals on his chest and his perfectly shined buttons reflecting light in every direction,

"No matter, he will be returned to his camp today," Kessel said, "this  _imbecile_ ," Kessel nodded to the private, "ruined everything by allowing that  _doctor_  in."

Hogan felt a touch of sorrow for the young man behind him. He may have been on the other side of the war, but it had been clear last night and even now, he was barely older than a boy. Carter may even have been older than him. "What happened to the doctor?" the Colonel asked and had his fears confirmed as Kessel smiled,

"He and his family are currently being buried," he said and Hogan bowed his head. More deaths. More suffering, "they got what they deserved," Kessel continued, stopping his pacing and standing once more in front of Hogan, "but you, my dear Colonel," he said, and Hogan had to physically stop himself from flinching when Kessel traced his jaw, the revulsion he had felt doubling at the unwelcome touch, "you're going to stay with us here for a little longer,"

His gaze moved off Hogan and onto the private behind the colonel, "take him to room  _dreihundertundacht,_ I will see to him later" Kessel ordered as another pair of SS troopers arrived in the corridor.

And with that, pushed and held at gun point, Hogan was led away from the cell, and though his heart wanted to believe that at last, at long last Peter was going to be safe, even though he himself was most certainly not, his head squashed that hope immediately. He needed to focus on survival now. Peter was a capable man. He didn't need his commanding officer holding his hand along the way.

In the cell, the corporal currently occupying his colonel's thoughts was staring at the cell door, having heard that entire conversation. The colonel was being moved. Why? What would happen to him?

A range of terrible outcomes popped into Newkirk's head and he had to close his eyes to stop the helplessness of the situation from hitting him.  _It would be just like you to go to pieces because they took him away. Stop it._  Peter forced himself to breathe deep as tingling pain started to emanate from his shoulder, the morphine being pushed aside by adrenaline instead.  _You are better than this_.  ** _He_** _expects you to be better than this._

_True, but you never had to worry about his life before_  he reminded himself before he remembered that he was not meant to be thinking about the Colonel again.

_Fuck._

He let his head fall back against the wall and was thus nearly gave himself whiplash when the door banged open for a second time in as many minutes and his head snapped to the doorway again.

Two SS troopers marched into the cell and before Peter had anytime to process what was happening they had grabbed him under the arms and roughly dragged him upwards, the pain he only vaguely remembered from last night suddenly overwhelming, burning through him hot and violent even as he felt a wave of wet heat spread from his injured shoulder.

The British corporal's pained scream echoed down the corridor and Hogan tripped and fell on the stairs leading upwards, his heart constricting painfully and his mind instantly recognising his corporal's voice,

"PETER!" he yelled, scrambling to his feet again, and was rewarded with a gun in his face, the private wielding it looking young, and scared, yet utterly determined,

"Stay where you are," he said, his English heavily accented and his finger on the trigger.

Hogan froze, even as his heart was pounding and his hands were shaking.  _Peter, Peter, Peter, God please, no, not now, please,_

"Turn around," the corporal said and Hogan followed the instruction but with only half his mind. He didn't move as the private pressed the gun into his back to urge him upwards though, and his head was twisted backwards towards the door leading to the corridor he had just exited.

The sound of the footsteps and small whimpers reached them then, and Hogan's fists clenched and his nails bit into his cold palms,

_Peter._

The cement floors and the harsh lighting were bleaching the colour out of Hogan's vision as he stared at the landing below them, and he felt his entire body almost deflate when the troopers he had seen earlier rounded the corner, dragging Peter between them, his legs trailing behind, his eyes closed and his shoulder covered in fresh blood. The sounds he had been making had stopped. They were holding Peter under the arms, suspending him between them, and Hogan realised with a jolt that the pressure on the wound was probably enough to undo all the good work the doctor did last night.

_He's out cold_ ,  _he's lost too much blood,_  Hogan, observed as the troopers paid them no mind, but instead took the stairs leading down, only the thud of Peter's feet on each step and the solid sound of the gestapo jackboots echoing through the building.

Still, Hogan stood and watched as they took the corporal away, and still the gestapo private kept the gun securely pressed into his back, the barrel hard and unwavering.

It was only when total silence fell on the stairwell that Hogan found the will to look at his captor, and slowly turned his body to face the boy again, his hands still held above his head, though the ache in his muscles was intensifying,

"Let me go," he said, hoping to appeal to the boy on a human level. The boy shook his head wordlessly,

"I cannot," he replied, but Hogan was unconvinced,

"Most gestapo men would have shot me by now," he pointed out, locking the image of Peter's lifeless body away, shoving his emotions roughly aside and instead turning on the innate charm that had so far kept him and his team alive,

"I-I know," the private breathed. But the gun remained up, it's polished barrel gleaming, taunting Hogan with it's power to take life, it's power to control,

The boy cast a terrified look around before looking back at the American Colonel that was causing so much trouble,

"They have my mother and sister," the words were barely a whisper, and seemed to have left the boy's lips without his command, but Hogan heard them and his own eyes widened, "Kessel wanted me here from the beginning. I-I-I don't know why but-but please," the private looked at the Colonel and Hogan contemplated just grabbing the gun now but then the private continued, "please go upstairs, I can't let them die, please" and Hogan raised his hands above his head and started climbing.

Maybe the boy was lying, the Colonel considered. But there was a desperate light to his eyes and a certain tightness in his voice that the Colonel recognised, so he complied.

No one else was going to die because of him today. No more innocents. Not if he could help it.

 

* * *

 

With a carefully light hand, wishing that Newkirk were back so that he didn't have this job, LeBeau dropped the envelope carrying their false message from Berlin onto Klink's desk, even as he pretended to move the pile of freshly delivered mail so he could wipe the table beneath.

"That's enough!" came the irritated exclamation from their not quite hated Colonel Klink, and LeBeau nodded and beat a hasty retreat out of the room.

Kinch watched him go and then turned his gaze back onto the Colonel, "Colonel, are you at least considering my request?" Kinch asked and the German finally looked up from his report, monocle a little lopsided and brow furrowed,

"What was that again?" he asked and Kinch had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. How Hogan didn't slap this bald eagle silly was beyond the American technician.

"More firewood, Colonel," he repeated, "we need it or we'll half freeze to death. The winter is getting worse,"

Colonel Klink rose from his place behind the desk, and threw his pen down for emphasis as he rounded on the sergeant, "We're all freezing!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, "and I can give you no more than what you have, which, by the way, is taking away from our own German citizens!" Kinch winced as Klink's voice went up and resigned himself to have to hear the Colonel out, "there is a war on, Sergeant, and you Americans have no stomach for the cold. There's a reason you're losing the war," Klink looked satisfied and Kinch comforted himself with the memory of the last bridge they blew up as a team. Those were the days, "now, my final answer, and it will remain my final answer, is no!" Then Klink added in his usual sing-song way, "dismissed!"

Kinch snapped a salute and left the office, only just stopping himself from slamming the door behind him. Helga threw him a sympathetic look as he passed and he smiled in return, hurrying out the door and across the frigid compound to the barracks. The only positive thing to have come out of that was the letter was planted. They were still contemplating breaking one of the bunks apart to use as firewood.

"Got out of there at last?" LeBeau asked, a smirk on his face as Kinch dropped into their dining/living/everything table and gratefully accepted the coffee.

"God, don't even talk to me about Klink. Colonel Hogan is a saint. That's the only reason Klink is still alive. He's infuriating! He's impossible! He-"

Kinch's rant was cut off as Carter's head appeared in Hogan's doorway,

"Klink's making a call!" he said and both Kinch and LeBeau hurried towards the office and gathered around the coffee pot. Klink's voice filtered through to them,

"… _yes, mein General, I have the letter here, straight from Berlin,"_  LeBeau exchanged a happy glance with Kinch. Looks like the first part of their plan was working out just fine,

_"_ _Good, carry out the orders,"_

_"_ _But me, Herr General? Give a lecture?_   _To all local commanders on capture and retention protocol?_ "

_"_ _It amazes me too, Klink, but I'm sure we'll learn something anyway,"_

And with that the call was ended. Carter allowed himself a grin as he looked at his co-conspirators, "We're halfway there," he said and LeBeau nodded,

"Now all we need is the others to accept the invite,"

"Not a problem. Once they realise Burkhalter has given the orders, they'll be here,"

"What about-" Carter didn't get to finish his sentence though as one of the others in the barracks called out,

"Hey you three! Get out here, there's a Gestapo truck arriving!"

Exchanging alarmed glances at the sudden appearance of those they were currently planning against, they hurriedly distangled themselves from the pot. They raced out of and came to stand in the doorway to watch as the truck stopped in front of the Kommandantur.

LeBeau watched with growing worry as heavily armed troopers stepped out of the truck and marched straight in,

"Coffee pot!" Kinch ordered and the other two didn't need to be told twice. They hurried back into the room, the bug still on as they shut and door and gathered around it once again, hoping their mic in Hitler's picture was still functional,

" _Heil Hitler!"_ The greeting was perfectly in sync and made Kinch frown, LeBeau to mutter darkly in french and Carter to jump at the sheer vehemence of it. Hitler's supermen were just enough to set anyone on edge,

_"_ _He-Heil Hitler!"_ Klink's stuttered reply came, obviously as shocked as the others at the SS's appearance,

_"_ _You are Colonel Wilhelm Klink?"_ Silence on the other end, in which Klink was probably nodding, then,  _"we have something that belongs to you. The Englander we captured on your behalf,"_

_"_ _Corporal Newkirk?"_

_"_ _Precisely. He is in the truck."_ Again another moment of silence,

_"_ _And the officer, Colonel Hogan?"_  Klink asked, and the three men in Hogan's office looked confused. Seems the German colonel may care more than he dared let on,

_"_ _That is not your concern. He will be returned when we sit fit,"_

_'_ _Now look here-"_

_"_ _Commander Brunstheim can be contacted if you are unsure of this,"_  One of the troopers said and LeBeau sighed. Klink the Coward was about to show up,

_"_ _Er-well-no gentlemen. That is okay. I always cooperate with the Gestapo!"_  Carter could almost see the pandering smile Klink would be wearing,

_"_ _Very well. Take the Englander and we will leave. Major Kessel sends his compliments,"_

_"_ _He does?"_

_"_ _Yes, Colonel. Heil Hitler!"_

_"_ _Heil!"_

Kinch switched off the coffee pot, "let's go get Peter," he said and the other two didn't need to be told twice. They hurried out into the barracks and had reopened the door leading outside when they saw Schultz approaching,

"LeBeau! Carter! Kinch!" he exclaimed, "back, back, back! Inside! Gestapo are here!" he brandished his gun but they ignored him completely, instead watching the truck, as, in the bright afternoon sunlight and chilling wind, an unmoving figure clad in royal air force blue was removed from the truck,

Shultz followed their gaze and found he didn't have the heart to push them back inside, as he knew how close these men were, and how it had changed the entire atmosphere, ever since Hogan and Newkirk had been reported captured by the Gestapo. Even Colonel Klink seemed snappier at him these days, perhaps because he no longer had Hogan to snap at.

The man on the stretcher was Newkirk, his eyes closed and body limp. There seemed to be no movement from him as he neared. The men stepped back inside the barracks on their own as the guards carried Newkirk in,

"Put him in  _mon Colonel's_ room," LeBeau said, pointing towards the little office and was gratified when the soldiers looked to Shultz who nodded, rather than ordering them to drop the corporal and walk away.

LeBeau, Carter and Kinch followed in silence, forming a silent procession on the short walk to the officer's quarters.

Newkirk's stretcher was lowered to the ground and the guards then lifted him onto the lower bunk, the weak beams of sunlight highlighting the white skin that looked almost porcelain in the filtered light, and in its complete lack of colour.

The guards left and Shultz came to stand in the doorway, also looking at the Englander, as LeBeau rushed forward and put a hand to Newkirk's pulse,

"He is alive?" Shultz asked, the question causing Kinch's own heart to clench painfully and Carter to suck in a breath, his eyes looking brighter than normal. They all felt relief flood through them as LeBeau nodded, the Frenchman letting out a pent-up breath,

"He is, but Shultz," he turned pleading eyes on the guard who was the least guard-like jailer they had ever seen, "we need fresh bandages," he pointed to the blood soaked shoulder, "I'll…make strudel for the rest of the month if you want, just get us some proper medical supplies,"

Shultz paused for a moment, looking like he was going to argue they barely had the supplies for themselves, when he instead nodded, "alright cockroach," he said before he turned around and walked away.

As soon as he left, Kinch shut the door and he and Carter dropped to Newkirk's side, Carter reaching out, "his skin is ice cold," he said,

"His pulse is thready," Kinch added, having grabbed Newkirk's wrist,

"I thought we got him help," LeBeau muttered, unable to reconcile this silent, unconscious man with the energetic, bright,  _alive_  man Peter was. "Pierre…" he instead said softly, unable to express how wrong this entire situation was, and so putting all that emotion into the one word,

"At least he's back," Carter said, the cheerfulness in that statement hopelessly farcical,

"In what condition?" Kinch asked, the numbness he had felt suddenly burnt away as anger took its place. He pushed to his feet, "look at him, Andrew! He's barely alive and we have no  _fucking_ supplies with which to treat him!" Kinch had to look away, trembling now as the enormity of the situation hit them. Hogan could be anywhere by now if they had moved Newkirk. They had no way of finding out where exactly and they couldn't exactly ask the corporal, because he lay on their commanding officer's bunk, bleeding to death.

Before Kinch could even begin to express his frustration he felt a warm hand on his shoulder and looked to Carter,

"We can fix him. And we still have our plan," he said. Kinch turned to see LeBeau had already taken Newkirk's jacket and shirt off and had exposed the wound. It was bloody and the stitches were torn but there was no pus and the smell didn't hit them across the room,

"No signs of infection," LeBeau said, glancing up at Kinch, "the stitches were ripped," he added, "he's lost a lot of blood, I think, that's probably why his skin is so cold," he pulled the blankets up to cover Newkirk's chest and other uninjured arm,

"Where's Wilson?" Carter asked, looking to Kinch,

"He had to go out into town today for supplies. There were extra patrols out, he went to ground. He left the supplies with the underground and won't be back until tomorrow the earliest," Kinch sighed, "perfect timing," he added dryly,

"I have a little first aid training, I can re-stitch this," LeBeau said, "but it won't look pretty," Kinch let out a bark of laughter as the sudden image of Newkirk being described as 'pretty' to his face came to him, surprising himself. LeBeau seemed to have also caught on and he smiled,

"It's not hopeless Kinch," he said, as he rolled the stained shirt into a ball and applied gentle pressure to the wound, "I know how it feels, but it's not hopeless. That's what the Colonel has taught me. I'm just a corporal and this war is a lot bigger than us, but it's never hopeless," he glanced up at the sergeant through his lashes and saw the understanding in the sergeant's eyes.

Kinch let out a sigh, leaning against the table and nodded, "I know, I just…" he stared at the wall, looking but not seeing the wood, "this has unsettled me," he said, as Carter walked back to the bed and grabbed Hogan's pillow from above, to help elevate the shoulder that LeBeau was working on, then also taking the blankets from above and covering Newkirk as best he could,

"I know, whenever the Gestapo do something decent I'm never sure what's happening," Carter replied, but Kinch was shaking his head,

"Not just that, though that's a point,"

'Then what,  _mon ami?_ " LeBeau asked, looking up from Newkirk and towards their current commander, looking isolated and troubled, standing across the room from them,

"A…feeling," Kinch managed eventually, "maybe I've spent too long around the Colonel but I just… _feel_ like they're keeping the Colonel for something much worse that what's happened to Newkirk,"

"Our friend is at death's door," LeBeau shot back, anger colouring his eyes and Kinch held a placating hand up,

"I am not demeaning the extent to which Peter has suffered. I dunno…maybe I'm wrong. Something worse is coming. I just…feel it."

LeBeau and Carter exchanged a glance across Newkirk's prone form, before LeBeau turned to Kinch who was still contemplating the wall,

"Maybe," the Frenchman conceded, "but for now we have bigger worries. Get Newkirk's sewing kit from the tunnel, would you Kinch?" LeBeau said, deciding that he had better take over for now. Kinch was rarely moody but when he did get into one of his moods, it was best to leave the sergeant to get through it and focus on the situation at hand. He always came out of it, and usually with a clearer understanding of their situation, sometimes spotting things that even the Colonel didn't,

"Sure LeBeau," with that the sergeant was out the door,

"Carter I need boiling water," LeBeau said, "and alcohol. Round up any spirits and bring them in here," Carter also nodded and left.

LeBeau reached out to place a hand on his best friend's cheek, devoid of the flush of pink normally there when he had just run through the night after blowing up a bridge, or sat across from them, cheating them out of whatever they were using for currency, and the Frenchman sighed.

_I know you don't believe in a God, Pierre, but allow me to pray on your behalf. You have to get better. We can't do this stupid war without you. And I think…neither can the Colonel._

 

* * *

 

Major Kessel marched into his office with all the stride and purpose of a man who owned the world. And if their little experiment went as planned, perhaps he would.

The agent smiled, as he dropped into his armchair, pulling his gloves off and reaching for the sheaf of paper on his desk. The flickering firelight accompanied by the soft lighting and plush carpets were a far cry from the prison cells on the above floors. He looked up as a knock came at his door and called out for whoever it was to enter.

A young man, wearing thick spectacles walked into the room, looking about as ecstatic as Kessel felt,

"He drank far more than was necessary Major," he said and Kessel allowed a smile to cross his face,

"Shut the door, Herr Doctor Strauss," he said and the young man complied, coming instead to sit across from the Major,

"How long before the drug take effect?" Kessel inquired, looking back at the reports in his hand, and shuffling them into the right order,

"Well it was in the water barrel, Major, so it's fairly diluted. Another hour or two at most, I should think," the doctor replied, looking extremely satisfied with himself as he shrugged out of his overcoat, his dark green eyes bright behind the lenses, his thin frame adding to the sharpness of his features,

Kessel felt a sense of happiness slide through him, "Excellent," he replied,

"It's a pity the other one was treated by a doctor though," the young doctor said, pouring himself and the major a shot of brandy from the decanter on the table,

"Yes, morphine cancels out the effects of the drug?" Kessel asked and the doctor nodded solemnly, looking put out,

"Unfortunately anything injected into the blood stream tends to counteract the pharmacological effects we hope the drug will have on the subject's higher brain emotion centres. They are totally unaffected then,"

"He  _was_  very pretty," Kessel said, "but he was English. They tend to be so hard to play with,"

"Our current subject is American?" the doctor asked and Kessel chuckled darkly,

"He could be wearing their flag," he replied taking the glass from the doctor, and raising it, "to bringing the war to a swifter end for the glorious Third Reich," he said, lifting it aloft, the amber liquid dispersing light daintily over the two of them as the chandelier burned bright above,

"To advancing science," the doctor added, before toasting with the major and tossing the brandy back.

_Oh what fun awaits you, Colonel Hogan,_ Kessel thought as he settled back for a long conversation with his intelligent and witty brother in law.  _What fun awaits indeed._

 

* * *

 

_**Here we are! At last! I know it's been like two months but I fell so far behind cause of uni and now I'm on holidays so it shouldn't happen in the near future. Promise, promise, promise, I will be more consistent with updates. Hope you're enjoying so far.** _

_**Would love any and all feedback!** _

_**Aza** _

_**x** _


	5. Sedated

**Chapter 5 – Sedated**

**_Darlin’, don’t you, stand there watching, won’t you_ **

**_Come and save me from it_ **

**_Darlin’, don’t you, join in, you’re supposed to_ **

**_Drag me away from it_ **

-           ** _Sedated, Hozier_**

****

Hogan sighed and shifted for what felt like the millionth time. His head had started to  _hurt_  like nothing else not so long ago and he could feel his hands trembling but he had no idea what was causing it or why, indeed, he was so unconcerned about it. For some reason, he just couldn’t seem to care that his heart rate was all jittery and inconsistent, and his breaths were coming far too short.

 _Must…be…cold._ The words drifted through his mind lazily, as if that too, was too much effort.

Something, deep down, some basal survival instinct was writhing and screaming at him to do  _something_ , telling him that all was not right, but it was muted and buried, nothing more than a niggling feeling in the back of the Colonel’s mind as he lay there wistfully, slumped on the ground.  

Then suddenly the world seemed to tilt on its axis and he groaned as pain ripped through him, seemingly from his centre, burning, all consuming, never-ending – and then just as suddenly, it was gone.

Slowly opening the eyes he hadn’t realised he had closed, Hogan froze as he took in the scene in front of him, his heart thundering in his ears, his limbs suddenly tingling as adrenaline shot through his system.

A large room, with a warm fire blazing in the hearth, the yellow light spreading and illuminating him on a – _couch? What in the world…?_

Hogan sat up slowly, his hand still subconsciously clenched around his abdomen where the pain had been not moments ago. The heat of the fire was welcome on his chilled skin, and he realised with a jolt that there was a warm rug underneath his bare feet and the couch was a warm marine-coloured felt, soft and luxurious. The corners of the room were shrouded in darkness that the firelight couldn’t quite reach, but Hogan felt his eyebrows reach for his hairline as he glanced up at where a glittering almost-chandelier hung, the candles unlit in their brackets, but the crystalline hangings absolutely entrancing in the semidarkness and flickering light source.

Hogan was about to get to his feet when he heard a noise behind him, the sound of a door closing, and he instead dropped to the carpet, pressing against the couch, his heart beating a tattoo in his chest once more, his mind jumping to a thousand conclusions yet accepting none of them.

Damned if he knew what was happening or where he was or  _what in the name of all that was holy_ brought him to a cabin very much like the ones he used to visit in the winter when he was younger, but he was not going to be caught like a sitting duck. He glanced around, looking for a poker, because that, at least, could be used as a weapon, but nothing came into his view as the footsteps neared. Hogan prepared himself to tackle whoever it was, and, as the pair of feet rounded the couch, Hogan pushed off the ground and grabbed the man around the middle, both of them collapsing in a heap on the ground, a small yelp emitted from the body Hogan had wrangled to the ground.

Then suddenly, the Colonel was hit with the smell of fresh tobacco and musky soap. Beneath his hands the skin he had revealed through his rough tackle was warm and the material slightly damp, as if pulled over still wet skin. The sapphire eyes that blazed in the firelight sparkled as the man beneath him laughed warmly.

Hogan froze for the second time in as many moments, his heart doing a painful constricting  _thing_  when that laugh washed over him, the breath warm, and hair messy and damp and cheeks pink and body warm and –

“Honestly, Rob, if you wanted a hug, you only ‘ad to ask,” Newkirk said, wrapping his arms around Hogan’s waist, and, as the colonel had gone limp from the sheer shock and the complete lack of sense, Hogan felt Newkirk push him off gently and rearrange then on the floor, shuffling to lean them both up against the couch.

“Peter…” The colonel breathed, reaching an arm out as if to touch the corporal but dropping it again. The English man merely smiled at his name and sent a shockwave of  _something_ through the colonel when he reached out a hand and joined theirs together, his skin too warm and Hogan’s heart beating dangerously irregularly, as if trying to escape his fast constricting chest.

 _What’s going on_ , he groaned in his mind, even as his mouth could not bring itself to actually say anything to Peter out loud.

“I’ve made dinner, and if you don’t tackle me when I emerge from the kitchen, we can eat it soon,” Newkirk said, seemingly unaware of his Colonel’s turmoil, laughter interwoven in the words, spoken quietly in the flickering semidarkness of the room. Hogan simply blinked and struggled to comprehend that Peter was sitting on the carpet next to him, not bleeding, completely uninjured, and looking like he fell out of every heaven the Colonel had ever dreamt of. Oh, and he was - _still holding my hand._ Hogan looked down numbly and wasn’t sure he hadn’t made a sound when his stomach lurched at the sight of their joined hands.

He looked back up.

Hogan drank in the image Newkirk presented like a man in the desert finding an oasis – he was wearing what appeared to be denim pants, and a soft flannel, that had probably been tucked into the jeans to reveal a slim figure. The colonel let his gaze travel up the corporal’s body, aware that he was staring, but unable to stop himself. The firelight softened the otherwise sharp features on his corporal’s face, as Hogan’s eyes travelled up the smooth neck and past the light stubble, but his eyes – the eyes that the Colonel couldn’t stop analysing if he was threatened with dismemberment of some body part – they were bright, and focused on him and he had to be sick or poisoned, because he would swear up and down there was a light in those blue orbs that he had seldom considered.

Hogan closed his eyes and laid his head back against the couch, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted as he felt a warm hand close on his shoulder and felt the rush of air as Newkirk got to his feet. The absence by his side hit him like a cold vacuum and he was frightened by the intensity of loneliness that suddenly washed over him.

“Peter…”

 

* * *

 

 

From his comfy office, Major Kessel looked at Doctor Strauss who smiled back, Hogan’s pained grunts and then the quiet words he had uttered aloud coming through loud and clear to the two men. They had bugged Hogan’s new bedroom thoroughly, after all, and Kessel was nearly buzzing with the feeling of success,

“The hallucinogens have begun their work,” he commented, turning to Strauss who had a smug smile situated on his face,

“Indeed they have, but I wish we could know what he was seeing,” there was a note of real longing in his voice and Kessel chuckled darkly,

“So do I. What do the subjects normally experience?”

“It varies so greatly we are unable to describe a pattern more specific than the manifestation of desires, longings and strong emotions,” Strauss replied, walking away from the table and seating himself on Kessel’s armchair,

“Such as?” Kessel asked, turning around and leaning back against the desk, his uniform in perfect condition as ever, his jackboots shined to a perfect gleam, his hair bearing a harsh side parting,

“Love, hate, anger, jealousy,”

“I see,” Kessel moved also, ignoring the silence on the bug and instead sitting across from Strauss.

“And what happens then?”

“It’s like they’re trapped in a living dream, so they see whatever their mind conjures up,” Strauss reached out and poured himself a drink from the crystal decanted on the table, “but the difference from the other, older hallucinogens is that we can influence the visions, and use it to break even the strongest soldier,”

Kessel’s eyebrows reached for his hairline, “Truly?” he asked, feeling a shock of excitement run through him. Strauss had never disclosed  _these_ details in his report.

The young scientist smiled slyly as he leant back against the couch again, his drink in hand, “Truly, Major. Instead of the hundreds of Marks needed to keep multiple prisoners alive, and the soldiers needed to keep them confined…” he faded off and Kessel nodded his understanding.

They didn’t need anyone, not even the walls to keep these prisoners with them, if they could trap them and manipulate them within their own minds,

“I think you don’t need this praise, Doctor, but allow me to say, if this works, you are truly a wonder,” Strauss’s smile grew lazy as his sharp blue gaze fixed on the Major’s own darker eyes,

“I know,” he said, tipping the brandy back, his eyes meeting the ceiling, where two floors above, Colonel Hogan staggered to his feet.

The Colonel’s breath was coming in sharp pants now and he was for the first time taking the new holding room in.

When that young private had brought him in earlier, he had been blindfolded, as the captain waiting at the door to the third floor has ordered. When he had arrived it was to such a piercing nausea that he had stumbled to the bed and fallen into the previous stupor.

Now, it was as if his brain turned on for the first time and he was  _seeing_.

The room was plush, all Germanic architecture, warm wood, gorgeous chandeliers and the bed was a far cry from the mattress he had shared with Peter. It was a real feather mattress with thick coverings. A fire was blazing in the grate and the carpet was soft under his feet.

He was reeling, the room spinning oddly, the colours too bright, the air too warm, cloying, choking what little air his laboured breaths were able to draw in. Hogan steadied himself on one of the four posts of the bed and closed his eyes. He felt a wave of nausea and fear wash over him again, and then felt the overwhelming panic.

 _God, God, God what…what was that dream?_ His eyes snapped open as he remembered how  _warm_ Peter’s hand had felt on his shoulder, how  _nice_ …the edges of his vision flickered and Hogan gripped the post tight, forcing himself to just  _stop._ Stop thinking.

_Breathe. In. Out. In. Out._

He forced himself into every technique he had ever known in all his years of military service.

 _This is not normal_. He reminded himself, yet he pressed that thought away.

This was not the room he had seen in that vision. However he wasn’t sure if the warmth and comfort of this current room had influenced the vision.  _Was it a vision? Was it a dream?_ He was desperate to rationalise it all out, but his body  _hurt_  in every imaginable way and his vision was blurry again.

He felt his legs give out under him, and heard his own cry of pain as if outside his own body as his knees hit the carpet.

_WHAT IS HAPPENING?_

The confusion, the fear, the agony – suddenly it was gone again.

Hogan could hear the fire crackling once more, closer than in the holding cell, felt the rug from before, differently textured to the holding cell, and he heard Peter’s voice, muted, as if through walls.

The Colonel opened his eyes.

He was back in  _that_  cabin, and this time, as he turned his head slowly, he could make out the corners of the room, could see more detail. It looked like a typical American house, complete with pictures on the mantle now, a dining room straight ahead from where the colonel was looking, resplendent with large windows, hung with lacy curtains, facing onto a street. Candles lit the long dining table, the chairs surrounding the table were a deep brown, high backed, fitting for such a large table.

Hogan pushed off the ground, waiting for some sign of discomfort from earlier, yet none was forthcoming. He paused a moment, then pinched himself hard, feeling the pain, exclaiming loudly, as his heart started thundering.

_Not a dream then._

“What was that?” Peter emerged from a swinging door, carrying a tray of something, which he carefully set down on the dining table. He walked over to the Colonel, and Hogan had to physically stop himself from jumping when a casual hand wrapped itself around his waist yet again and Peter guided him towards the table as if there was nothing remotely wrong with what he was doing.

Not that the Colonel minded.

Except that he should.

And absolutely nothing made sense.

“What’s up with you today?” Newkirk’s tone was concerned as he leant in closer to the Colonel as they came to a stop at the dining table and Hogan forgot to breathe.

_Too close._

“You’re so tense. Was the General difficult today?” Newkirk leaned away, as if to get a better estimate of the colonel and Hogan risked a glance to his right, where Newkirk was pressed against his side, their bare feet brushing.

_Mistake._

His breath caught in his throat.

Newkirk’s eyes were filled with a most intriguing mixture of heat, worry and love that Hogan had long since given up hope of inspiring in another person.

After all, a career Air Force man did not a good husband make.

“I…” he started, but then Newkirk reached out a hand and traced the apple of Hogan’s cheek, and Hogan faltered,

“It’ll be alright darlin’,” Newkirk said, the words mumbled, intimate, and the Colonel all but melted into that touch, turning to nuzzle the palm of Newkirk’s hand, his hands, quite without his input, reaching out and placing themselves on the corporal’s waist.

Hogan felt a warm wave of heat rush through him as he realised that the corporal’s shirt was raised, revealing a smooth strip of skin that he carefully ran his fingers over.

His brain all but shut down then when the corporal let out a husky laugh and stepped right into his colonel’s space, pressing their bodies together from chest to thigh, “What, don’t feel like talkin’ tonight, guvnor?” he asked, placing specific emphasis on the final word, as if he knew that the colonel usually got a jolt low in his belly whenever the English corporal did use that word. As if he knew that it would add weight to the pry bar on that door Hogan had so desperately been trying to hold close these last months.

Hogan found himself turning before he could think about it, so that they were chest to chest, and he could almost  _taste_ the tobacco that hung on Peter’s clothing. His extra height gave him clear view of the light dusting of freckles over Peter’s nose, endearing and unique. The younger man glanced up through his lashes at the Colonel.

Hogan’s heart skipped several more beats and he realised he had to be bruising Peter’s hips with the force he was gripping them.   

 _Marking him_.

_Mine._

And then he was kissing the man like there was nothing else in the world that mattered.

Peter let out a moan, wanton, low, and he gave himself to Hogan’s control.

The colonel pushed him, with more force than he intended, against the wall leading to the kitchen, a sudden hunger coursing through his entire being.

He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t see.

His entire existence had centred down to the point of contact with Peter’s soft lips, the spiky brush of his stubble against Peter’s cheek as he moved to the corporal’s neck. Peter arched into him as he bit down, and moaned softly, breathily and this wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, more, want,  _need_  -

And suddenly the pain was back, and his bones were on fire, he was lying in a pit of snakes, on a bed of nails.

Hogan’s eyes snapped open.

The ceiling was different.

The floor was different.

His breathing was erratic, and there was no electric touches. No warmth from Peter.

He was alone.

The scream that left Hogan echoed down the third floor corridor, followed then, by complete silence.

 

* * *

 

 

In the office, Kessel furrowed his brow, “What happened?” he asked, also having heard the scream over the bugs in the room, his own pulse faster than normal from the sudden sound.

Herr Strauss also looked rather worried, “I’m…not sure, Herr Major,”

Kessel felt a spike of anger, “You arrogant little insect -” he started, but the young doctor was not to be cowed, and held a placating hand up,

“I told you that every subject reacts differently,” he said, slowly, calmly, “the drugs are starting to take full effect, but I believe our dear Hogan is stronger than all the others,”

“What do you mean?” Kessel asked, “Why isn’t he in dream land now? Why did he scream?” Kessel stalked closer to the young doctor, the gleam in his eyes menacing, his entire posture that of a predator about to pounce.

Still, the young doctor was not moved. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and looked Kessel in the eyes, “I mean, Herr Major, that the Colonel’s body is fighting the drug. He’ll be in excruciating pain,”

“So what does that mean?” Kessel demanded, his voice still rough, but the dangerous light in his eyes slightly dampened,

“It means he’ll take longer to adjust, that is all. I will go and check on him in person now. We do not want him to hurt himself before his purpose has been served,” and with that, Strauss turned for the door. Giving a sharp “Heil Hitler” accompanied by a click of his boots, Strauss exited, leaving Kessel to stew in his own juices.

 

* * *

 

 

The major watched the door close, and before he could throw something at it, the phone rang, startling him out of his fury.

He glared at the phone like it was the reason for this little hitch in their plan, before yanking it up, “What?” he demanded,

“General Burkhalter for you, Herr Major,” came the secretary’s timid voice,

“What does he want?” Kessel asked,

“He said he has important new directives for you, Herr Major,” she replied,

“Bloody Wehrmacht!” Kessel exclaimed, “Alright, put him on!” he added, a lock of his otherwise perfectly styled hair falling into his eyes as a result of his agitation.

“Herr Major?” Burkhalter’s nasally voice inquired,

“Heil Hitler!” Kessel said,

“Heil Hitler!” Burkhalter replied, “Now, onto business Kessler. New orders from Berlin, did you get it?”

“What?” Kessel managed and heard an exasperated sigh from the other end,

“Never mind. There is to be a compulsory lecture on prison management and prisoner routines to be given at Stalag 13 in four days. You had better attend,”

Kessel felt a flair of irritation, egged by the earlier scene with Strauss, “I am a part of gestapo! I do not take orders from the Wehrmacht!”

“SILENCE!” Burkhalter bellowed back, and Kessel could see the expression on his pig-like face and felt a wave of repulsion go through him. How men like that could command positions of power in the glorious Third Reich was beyond him. Burkhalter was still talking, and Kessel tuned in in time to hear “These orders are from HQ themselves! I will see you there, Kessel!” before the click of the line being cut reached him.

Kessel slammed his receiver down and huffed.

A lecture? What was he going to learn from a lecture?

He pushed roughly off his desk.

One of these days he was going to show that blimp of a general what it means to be a real commander.

He sighed and composed himself.

Four days was enough time to crack Hogan. He would get the information and then shove it in Burkhalter’s face when HQ makes him the new region commander for  _excellent_  work.

He glanced up at the ceiling, as if he could see straight through it.

If only the stupid American Colonel would just cooperate!

 

* * *

 

 

Doctor Strauss unlocked the room where they had placed the Colonel and was unsurprised to find that the man had passed out on the floor.

Typical.

He signalled the guards behind him to get the Colonel onto the bed.

He was still physically unhurt.

That was good.

“Bring him food and water,” he added, as the guards turned to leave, “and no matter what you hear, do not enter this room, is that clear?”

They nodded silently. Strauss took a last look at the Colonel before turning around and closing the door.

He could not wait for the Colonel to wake. After all, the drug only worked when the subject was conscious. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he would get such a strong patient. Normally they die within the 48 hour period, because they never could find the drug off. They could still get the information they needed out for the men they drugged, but it was always a pity that Strauss never got to play with them afterwards. Their systems simply collapsed under the stress.

 _This_ , on the other hand, was going to be a very interesting experiment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's so short! I just wanted to give you amazing people something to show I haven't abandoned the story. It\s going to be completed, don't worry.  
> Life's just getting a little away from me :P  
> Thanks for all your support, though, guys. It means the world to me! <3
> 
> Aza


	6. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up at Gestapo headquarters and things take an unexpected turn at Stalag 13

**Chapter 6 – Boulevard of Broken Dreams**

**_My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me_ **

**_My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating_ **

**_Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me_ **

**_‘Till then I walk alone_ **

As the last rays of sunlight faded in Barrack 2 of Stalag 13, Newkirk’s blue eyes opened, blinking in the dim light, struggling to focus on his surroundings.

The corporal stared blankly at the bunk on top of him, wondering what had woken him up, what time it was, and why the barracks were so quiet. He was about to sit up when a heavy pressure and pulsing ache from his shoulder drew his attention.

Then it all came back to him and he groaned aloud.

It was not a normal day at the barracks. His colonel was still being held by Gestapo and his shoulder was a right mess.

 _I need to find the fellas,_ was his first thought and even as he began to attempt to sit up despite the pain, he found himself being pushed down as LeBeau startled him by suddenly appearing in his field of vision,

“Pierre!” The little Frenchman exclaimed, a wide smile spreading across his face as the feeling returned to his numb legs. He had accidentally dropped off to sleep on the floor next to Newkirk during the day, and was just woken by his friend’s groan,

“Pierre, how are you feeling?” he asked and Newkirk couldn’t stop the smile at the sheer joy that seeing his old friend brought him, after everything he had been through,

“I’ve never been better, little mate,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse but warm, “but me shoulder could do with a little help,” he added with a wry smile and LeBeau nearly laughed aloud despite his friend’s suffering. Newkirk had retained his humour. The rest of his healing just needed time,

“We know, _mon ami,”_ LeBeau replied, sobering, “we are working on that,”

“Well bloody hurry up,” the Englishman grumbled, causing LeBeau to lose his battle to stay serious as a large grin broke across the tired face. 

The whole day, the men of barracks 2 had taken turns to watch the corporal, while everyone else supervised the building of the trap they were planning for Kessel. The Underground’s observation squads and spies had reported that invites for Klink’s lecture were already sent out to all district commanders in all arms of the service, with instructions that attendance was compulsory. Their plan was to ‘accidentally’ reveal to Kessel their underground operation and the four days they had before all the brass arrived at the camp had to be enough to create the fake underground tunnels which they were going to trick Kessel in.

It was a good plan, but it did hinge then on Major Hochstetter, their area Gestapo commander, being the complete arse that he was, and demanding all of Kessel’s prisoners released to him after Kessel’s demise.

Then, they’d pull their usual snow job over Dusseldorf’s Gestapo, and Hogan would be back within a week.

The plan sounded simple, but so much hung on getting the timing of their interventions correct, and so much dangled on chance, that it was sheer desperation that stopped them from sitting down and giving up. This was, however, the only plan they had, so whether they liked it or not, they had to do this if they ever wanted to get their Colonel back.

LeBeau rearranged the cushions around Newkirk and the English corporal sighed. He hated being nursed like he was an invalid, but the last thing he wanted to do was sound ungrateful for the smaller man’s help. Then his mind flashed back to the moments he had been lucid in Hogan’s care, and all the happiness at being back in their ‘home’ of sorts vanished. Instead, a sinking fear began to creep through his being as he remembered Hogan being ripped away from their cell roughly, thrown on the floor and then escorted away. He also remembered the warm and comforting grip that Hogan held him in, right through the night. And he missed his commander like he was missing a limb.

“Pierre?” LeBeau shook Newkirk’s foot gently, erasing the blank look from Newkirk’s face, bringing the corporal out of his dreary thoughts,

“Sorry mate,” He replied, his voice subdued, breaking eye contact as he felt his eyes grow moist.

 _Great, next I’ll be asking for a frock and stockings,_ he thought to himself, ashamed at his tears, ashamed at his fear of losing Hogan,

“I’ll get the others!” LeBeau said, but Newkirk heard the change in tone and was sure his best friend had seen his expression and Newkirk felt yet another wave of disgust directed at himself.

He was a British corporal for Christ’s sake. He shouldn’t go to _fucking pieces_ just because he was injured, or because the only man he ever – Peter stopped that train of thought right there and drew in a sharp breath, wiping his eyes on the blanket.

 _We’ll get him back, your mates will help,_  he assured himself, and, it turned out, just in time, because the door burst open to chatter as Kinch and Carter walked in with LeBeau, Carter reaching down to hug Newkirk, jarring the shoulder as he did.

Newkirk felt a well of emotion as his team mates chattered at him, their smiles at his recovery like beacons after the darkness of the past few days. So, Newkirk buried the worry for his Colonel and instead enjoyed this reunion, aware of how close he had come to losing all of this, everything he had worked for so far.

He was sure they had a plan, but at least for now, it seems he would have to wait before they let him in on any secrets.

 

* * *

 

 

Colonel Hogan came to with warm sunlight streaming onto his face, sleeping on what felt a like a cushion of air. His eyes fluttered open in the morning light and he stared in confusion at the lovely candelabra hanging from the ceiling, one which definitely did _not_ belong in a POW camp.

_What…_

And then a warm breath ghosted across his cheek and he froze as memories came back to him. A kiss against a wall, pain beyond all reason…two such conflicting pieces of information, yet he had known to experience them. How could they be explained?

The Colonel forced himself to calm down. Employ a technique that they taught recruits in base camp – recount what you know, then figure out what you can learn.

He had been captured by the Gestapo. Newkirk tried to save him and nearly died in the process. Then they were held in a room at gestapo headquarters, before they were separated and he was taken to…the Colonel frowned. He knew there was more after seeing Peter removed from the building but he just couldn’t…remember. Hogan shifted slightly, and Newkirk murmured something, his sleep momentarily disturbed as his pillow moved.

They were in bed, both still clothed, _thank God,_ but how did they arrive there? What was he even wearing? Didn’t feel like his uniform…Hogan lifted the sheet and his suspicions were confirmed. He was wearing silk pyjamas, like the ones he had back in the states.

Carefully, the senior officer extracted himself from Newkirk’s loose embrace, though it pained him to do so, and he forced his galloping heartrate to subside so he could catalogue the room.

Soft green carpet underfoot, expensive furnishings. An ensuite, leading off straight ahead of him, and to his right, a wall to ceiling window, overlooking a lush green forest valley, branches lit in yellow-gold sunlight, waving gently in a breeze, a sparrow fluttering busily by.

Not in the city then, he realised.

Hogan walked out the door and into the hallway, surprised to look up and see the ceiling was a skylight. He remembered waking up in the living room… _last night?_ And as he walked down the hall he found the same living room, connected to the dining room there, now bathed in the early morning light.

 _0813_ , Hogan realised, checking the mantel clock as he padded into the kitchen, the clean white tiles cool under his feet, the kitchen large and, as he opened the fridge, apparently well stocked.

Everything about this house out in the middle of nowhere said that it was well lived in. And that it was he and Peter doing the living. The thought itself self a frisson of awareness down his back. They had one bed, in one bedroom. And there was no one here to stop them doing exactly what they liked.

He bit down on that thought hard.

 _No doing anything until you figure out…_ that thought trailed away though, as the very object of his rather inappropriate attentions decided to make an appearance. Wearing not his pyjamas, but a bathrobe.

 _When did he change?_ Rob frowned, but Peter smiled at him, and then he was hugging him and kissing him a good morning and it was a couple minutes more before Rob could master the power of speech,

“Morning,” he managed, his voice still a little more hoarse than he’d like,

“What do you want for breakfast, guvnor?” Peter asked, pulling pots and plates out of various cupboards, turning the kettle on and getting some eggs. Like this was not all of a sudden, all out of the blue.

Hogan put a hand to his head.

None of this domesticity was making any sense.

He looked at the clock and nearly dropped the cup of coffee Pete had pushed into his hand.

 _1020_ the kitchen clock read. That didn’t seem possible...

A pain started to build behind his eyes. It seemed to be spreading. He heard the distant sound of a ceramic mug breaking on a tiled floor. _But why does it sound far away? I was just there…_

And then the agony of a thousand deaths was back and his eyes flew open, and he screamed. Screamed, and screamed. He was alone. There was no one here and he was alone. _Alone._ If he wasn’t so alone then maybe, maybe he could…he could…

“Robert Hogan?”

A voice! Yes, a voice! Maybe it knew where Peter was. Rob tried to voice his question but all that came out was another scream, ripped form his throat, tearing at his vocal chords. God, but he couldn’t stand this _loneliness._

“Can you tell us your rank?” the voice asked. It wasn’t Peter’s voice. But Hogan felt a modicum of relief when hearing it.

“Colonel,” he replied, hearing his own voice as weak, soft, he couldn’t even recognise it,

“Good. Who are you screaming for, Colonel Robert Hogan?”

The answer was simple. Hogan felt a hysterical laugh escape him, along with the name, the life, the soul, the _beauty_ that was his…“Peter…”

“Peter will come back to you,”

A spark of joy in Hogan’s chest, and the pain lessened again. Yes, Peter could take this pain away. Peter would make it better,

“Return to him, Robert Hogan,”

And so he did.

 

* * *

 

 

Herr Strauss watched from a stiff backed wooden chair, placed in the Colonel’s room, next to the bed to allow the visitor as good a view of the prisoner as possible. Hogan’s laboured breathing eased as he fell back into the dream, and Strauss adjusted his own stiff uniform collar, while Hogan’s agonised cries subsided to sobs and whimpers.

Strauss was a stark contrast of dignity against the colonel, who was pale, drenched in his own sweat and blood from the lucid moments he tried to escape his own pain. He had left gouges up his arm, the bright red blood vivid against the white sheets, his uniform rumpled and stained. His lips were cracked and bleeding and Strauss decided that soon they would need to put him on an intravenous feed if they didn’t want him to die.

Strauss made for the door, his goal for today accomplished. He wished to see if the Colonel could be influenced under the drug, talked into giving them information for the promise of return to whatever was happening in his mental prison. It seemed, that the Colonel was one those affected by the absence of someone. His body, the way it angled towards the direction of Strauss’ voice was the first indicator, the doctor noted, but also the name, “Peter”. A brother, perhaps? Or best friend. Someone for whom the Colonel carried a great love for? It didn’t matter. What _was_ important though, was that the Colonel was missing someone terribly. Which meant that they had only wake him from his dream to throw him into a state of panicked awareness, enough to get whatever information they needed from him.

Strauss made his way to his room on the fifth floor, checking his watch. In another twenty minutes they would need to dose Hogan again with the hallucinogen. Strauss sighed as he stepped up onto his floor and turned to make his way to his door. It was a pity he would never truly know what Hogan saw when his eyes closed. But he knew, with great certainty that the man who the local Gestapo called a great planner, with his inability to get caught doing anything illegal, could fall to the trap of every great man – love.

Love, Strauss had come to find, was the greatest evil another human could bestow upon you. Love didn’t make the world go round, if you asked him. No, it caused your world to implode on itself, leaving you completely lost and alone, wounded and helpless as a newborn lamb.

 

* * *

 

 

LeBeau placed the freshly made food on the stove next to the pot of tea he was boiling for Newkirk, a small smile on his face despite knowing that their Colonel was missing, warmth flooding him, not from the stove but from Peter’s voice behind him.

“And then, I said, I did, ‘What do you think I’m here for?’” The table erupted in laughter as the corporal finished his joke and sat back lazily, comfortable in his cabin mate’s presence despite his ashy pallor and bandaged arm.

His worry he hid behind his favourite Peter-The-Joker mask, not willing the others to see his face or know his pain. But he had a feeling that while the majority of the room bought his story, LeBeau, Carter and Kinch were humouring him. They didn’t let him out of their sight and he could see them exchanging looks with each other when they thought he wasn’t looking, silently giving each other updates on either him, he was sure, or things he was apparently not strong enough to be bothered with. Peter wasn’t sure if it was making him feel more like punching them or punching himself. Either way, the way in which they were tiptoeing around him was going to push him to some form of physical violence. He was _angry._ Admittedly, the alternative would be sadness, so Peter clung to this anger, uncalled for as it may be, because he knew they were doing it out of concern for him, but he couldn’t stand this for much longer. It made him feel even more impotent than he already knew he was.

Kinch, meanwhile, nodded his head in Peter’s direction as he got up from the table, indicating to LeBeau that he should be paying more attention to the corporal. The stupid English man was so _stubborn_. He preferred to think that they would rather he suffered in silence than actually tell them that yes, he was tired and wanted to go to bed.

The sergeant hit the button on the bunk that led to the lower tunnels and lowered himself down the ladder, the noise and smells of the upper room disappearing as he was suddenly shrouded in the damp dimness of the tunnels and the roof slid closed above him as he alighted off the ladder.

As much as he hated this war and he hated the Germans, these tunnels, these dirt and rock tunnels that were barely holding themselves together, were all that kept him sane some days. They were the one thing in the midst of all this stupid that gave him comfort, hope. Made him feel useful.

It was such a pity that the silent tunnels stayed silent though, the red indicator of the radio staying dark as he paused at the comms station, hooping perhaps to find a message coming through from the underground regarding the state of their missing CO. Deciding he was too restless to sit down just yet, the sergeant instead turned away as the sound of dripping water plonking onto soft mud reached him from further in the inky darkness. Picking up a gas lamp and lighting it from the one kept constantly burning at his station, he wandered aimlessly, following the rocky walls, the sound of his footsteps echoing in front of him, encircling him as he carried himself forward.

He lost himself to dreams of home, of the bustling city and women’s laughter drifting out from the café’s and local bars as he walked past, on his way to the Telecommunications Company where he learnt all his skills. The cars would honk noisily next to him and children would run past, playfully pushing each other, pushing past him, with a ‘sorry, mister!’ bursting from them, breathless, heady in their excitement.

Would any of that even exist if they lost this war? Their Colonel had done so much for the war effort it was almost as if they were fighting the war all by themselves, London a whole other world away, too detached, too – well not _safe_ , per se, but at least they still had their families with them, at least they still had the constant reminder of their own city in ashes to keep them fighting. What did the American lads have? All they saw was the destruction of land that wasn’t theirs. Then the Colonel reminded them of the friendships they had formed. He reminded them every day that if they didn’t win here, the Nazi’s would come for their families, their homes, a whole other continent away. He reminded them that at the end of the day they must fight together or lose everything they ever loved together. All without saying a single word on the topic.

He was amazing like that. He was their commanding officer, but the way the men had come to regard him, it was almost as if he were their father, their brother, a god walking amongst mere mortals, weaving his spell on everyone who fell within a certain radius. Who hadn’t simply melted under the thousand watt power that man exuded? Not a man in this camp hadn’t had their own pants charmed right off them.

 God help them, but they couldn’t fight this war without him.

And if Kinch was being honest with himself, especially now, in the drafty, cold tunnels with no one but him and the moles, he’d seen the way that Peter’s whole being lit up when Hogan walked into the room. The way the corporal watched the Colonel’s reaction to what he was saying. They were closer than any other men in the camp and Kinch envied that relationship. He knew he wasn’t alone in that either. The men here would give an arm and a leg to have their Colonel pay even five minutes of attention to them. Yet Peter could sit with the Colonel for hours at a time and never seemed to feel unwanted. Indeed, the Colonel welcomed him, chased him up with non-mission related conversations.

Kinch felt a stab of pity for the English man. He remembered what Peter was like before the Colonel. Not withdrawn, never that, as the Englishman was born a magnetic attractant for people. But he was abrasive and brash, he got into fights with anyone who let their mouth run away from them, and even Klink couldn’t turn a blind eye to that.

Instead of treating Newkirk the way that all the other officers did, which was to try and relate to Newkirk, fail and give him up as a lost hope, Hogan, in his usual way, tried and tried and tried again until that hard exterior of the corporal cracked, broke and completely crumbled into dust, which was then blown away by the winter winds that hounded them. But more than that, Kinch realised with a start, Hogan channelled all that energy, that showmanship, that manic need to stand up to authority into their missions. He gave Peter a purpose and in doing so, he reinvigorated the corporal.

In turn, Peter was a sounding board for the colonel, the realist that he needed to bring him level when he got too carried away with his plans.

It was like the universe had aligned so that these two could be together and do some real good in the world. As if –

Kinch was dragged out of his thoughts as his foot hit something soft and very not tunnel like.

That something let out a yelp of pain and Kinch felt a rush of adrenaline as his fight or flight instincts kicked in, “ARGH!” he yelled as the thing – as the _person_ pushed him out of the way and into the wall,

“Oh no you don’t!” he yelled, and with that he was running after the person, the shadow that he had somehow not seen because he was too lost in his own head,

“STOP!” he bellowed, his voice thunderous in the manmade caverns, and he heard a whimper of fear.

A brief flash of a pale face in front of the dodgy electric lights they had installed further down here revealed a young face, painted with terror. 

The image brought Kinch up short, allowing his target to gain a little distance from him.

Swearing, Kinch pushed off the wall and took off after the boy, “I’m not going to hurt you!” he yelled, but, he realised, perhaps yelling and running after the boy was not going to convince him of that.

The boy was fast, but Kinch had helped to build these tunnels, he couldn’t be outrun when he knew every hole, every crack and turn that could trip up a runner, and more importantly, every route.

He took a shortcut to the right under Barracks 1 and emerged into the same tunnel ahead of the boy, whose blue eyes widened in abject fear.

Kinch tackled him to the ground and felt the weak struggles of the clearly exhausted boy come to a gradual stop as he realised the man on top of him had a good 30 to 40 kilos on him.

Finally, all that could be heard in the dim light of the supplementary corridor was their breathing, Kinch not daring to ease up for fear of the boy running again.

It was then that Kinch thought to take in the appearance of this random visitor and realised that the boy was very young indeed. Especially considering he was SS uniform, had a terrible cut on his left cheek, and there, lying across his chest, collecting the flickering light from the oil lamp above them and shining as if filled with their own energy, relentlessly drawing his eyes, were the dog tags that read HOGAN, ROBERT E., 38976567. U.S. AIRFORCE.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Hey guys I'm back!

After what was...a very long break. But I never forgot this story. Just got caught up in university. Hope you enjoyed that chapter, the new one is already half written. Just have to hang in there with our boys for a little longer!

Aza

x 


	7. My Cocaine

**Chapter 7 – _My Cocaine_**

**_You say that you would be better off without me_ **

**_No doubt about it_ **

**_Even if it’s the only way, I’m always right here, waiting, cold in the rain_ **

**_‘Cause you’re my cocaine_ **

****

His head aching and his shoulder beating a tattoo of pain at him, Kinch handcuffed the boy to the nearest unmoveable and heavy object, which happened to be a pole.

“No, please!” the boy begged, his accent thick, but the words undeniably a call for mercy. Kinch ignored them and instead turned away, his heart hammering in his chest, a thousand questions making his head spin.

Who was the kid? Where did he come from? _How_ did he get into their bunker? That was a real gem of a question, because even the underground network had trouble finding it and they were told exactly how to access it. So the chances that some random had just wandered in were next to damn impossible.

Kinch huffed as he hurried along the passage back to his barracks.

The most worrying thing of them all, and there were a lot of things to be worried about, so that was saying something, was the SS uniform that looked 100% authentic, as real as that blonde hair and blue eyes. What if this was a trap? What if, even now, Hochstetter was about to descend on them and every single one of their worst nightmares were about to be realised?

Kinch shuddered at the thought as he reached the ladder leading up and triggered the trap door. He hefted himself with little grace and plenty speed, “Carter, LeBeau, with me,” he demanded from the ladder before climbing back down.

 LeBeau was in the act of serving out their dinner and had paused with the pot on his hip and spoon in hand. Carter and Newkirk stared at him, perplexed at their acting commander’s sudden order,

“NOW!” Kinch bellowed from bellow and they jumped, quickly letting go of what they were holding and making their way to the ladder.

Newkirk winced as he forced his bruised body into action, his head throbbing and nausea and fatigue washing through him in waves, the struggle to keep his eyes open increasing with each passing moment. He glanced up and caught LeBeau’s worried frown as the French corporal noticed the turmoil Newkirk had thought he was hiding rather well. The English corporal made an effort to straighten up then, desperate not to miss whatever was going down just because his friends were concerned he might hurt himself and unconcerned that Kinch had not called for him.

 “Peter,” LeBeau started, as the English man began to make his way to the tunnels, but the corporal had been pushed to his very limits of tolerance for all of this _coddling_.

“FUCK OFF!” he barked, the exclamation loud and entirely unexpected. LeBeau took a step back at the force of it and a tense silence fell on the cabin - but LeBeau did not get angry and Peter felt his own anger step up another notch because of it.  Had it been any other day, any other situation, the Frenchman would have whacked him with something heavy by now,

“Pierre…” he instead said, softly, “You cannot climb the ladder with only one arm, my friend,” he said and Peter’s glare hardened,

“Watch me, you bloody frog,” he spat, turning for the tunnel, but then Carter was there, a restraining hand on his chest, all huge blue eyes and earnest expression. Newkirk managed to glare for another moment, but even as he stood there, the cabin began to spin dangerously, and he could feel every hurt in his body returning with full force now he wasn’t trying his level best to ignore the whole damn thing.

“Fuck.” He instead said, dropping his gaze, as he swayed on the spot. LeBeau was there, a guiding hand on his shoulder, a comforting arm around his waist, even as his hearing was replaced with ringing and a throbbing began at his temples.

LeBeau guided him back into the CO’s cabin and shut the door, placing him gently on the bed. Newkirk sank gratefully into the mattress and had no idea when he lay down, but there was a bunk on top of him, and LeBeau was covering him with a sheet, mumbling something gently in French.

He was so angry he wanted to scream and kick and yell until they understood. They had to understand, he couldn’t sleep, if he slept, if he missed something…what if he did, what if…what if the Colonel came back? Needed him?

Newkirk’s thoughts grew completely incoherent and then, and, as his eyelids slid closed, he felt a sharp spike of betrayal as realisation dawned on him.   
  
_Sleeping pills…those fuckers…_

 

* * *

 

 

LeBeau shut the door and turned, feeling horrible at what he, Carter and Kinch had just done. But Peter would not listen to them, would not stay in bed and wouldn’t let them give him the sedative he needed so his body would heal. Every movement he made was gingerly done, every breath appeared to pain him, but he just soldiered on like there was something wrong with admitting he was human too.

“Is he out?” Carter asked and LeBeau nodded,

“I expected it to happen sooner,” LeBeau muttered, hurrying for the ladder where Kinch was no doubt waiting. They scrambled down to an irate glare from the man,

“What took you so long?” he asked, evidently having gone on to wherever he wanted to take them and coming back, judging by the slightly laboured breaths that walking for extended periods of time in the tunnels caused.

“The sleeping pills finally took effect,” Carter said and the annoyance on Kinch’s face dropped to be replaced by a wry smile,

“I call dibs on not having to go and wake him in the morning,” he said and the other two laughed,

“So what is the problem, Kinch?” LeBeau asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the pillar next to him

“Yeah, what’s so urgent?” Carter added, looking at the other sergeant intently.

Kinch seemed to consider for a moment then said, “Perhaps…I should show you,” and with that he set off down the tunnel with the other two of the command team trailing behind him, the oil lamp in his hand swaying with his stride and casting a ghostly flicker on the brown walls.

 

* * *

 

 

Hogan was running, laughing as he did, his bare feet slipping on the wet grass, his shirt blowing open in the wind and his hair flopping onto his face as the rain pelted down around him. The laughter was echoed from behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Newkirk take a running leap at him, attempting to grab his shirt tails,

“You’ll never catch me,” Hogan laughed, using a thin tree trunk to help turn him right, towards the large house that sat on the hill, surrounded by the lush woodlands,

“Oh?” Newkirk panted from behind him, clearly struggling to keep up with the taller man, who was built for athleticism and speed,

“Never!” Hogan felt another laugh burst from his lips, the exhilaration of the chase, the knowledge that Newkirk was just there, within his reach, all of it was lifting him to a natural high, where it felt as if the world smiled at him.

The colonel decided that enough was enough and he collapsed onto the grass with a squelch, aware that his clothes were ruined, but knowing that if he stopped here, then Newkirk would follow suit.

The corporal barrelled into him at full speed, grabbing him around the waist and they both tumbled to a halt, Hogan landing on top of the corporal, his wet hair falling forward, dripping onto the man he now had trapped in a cage made by his limbs as a rumble of thunder sounded above them.

“I think I got you just a little bit” Newkirk said, his eyes dark and his voice husky,

“Alright, alright, I’ll concede just this once,” Hogan replied, unable to tear his gaze away from Newkirk’s face. He reached out with his palm and he traced the apple of his cheek, the skin smooth and wet, and watched as those cheeks heated at his touch, the man turning his face to kiss Hogan’s palm, before sending a cheeky grin up to the colonel and proceeding to lick a strip up to his wrist. Hogan felt his stomach flip as a rush of arousal ran through him,

“I love you,” the words were out before Hogan could stop them and he watched as Newkirk’s eyes widened in surprise, before they crinkled with a smile,

“I love you too,” he replied, kissing the Colonel’s wrist this time, and Hogan let himself collapse to land on top of Newkirk, completely covering his body with his own, the heat a wonderful contrast to the cold rain that should have sent them inside.

Just as the Colonel leaned a little further forward to kiss the man who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his chest,

“What….” He grunted, sitting up and grabbing his chest. He looked around him, suddenly they were in the living room, and the rain was gone, and so was Newkirk. A sudden spike of fear hit him, “Peter!” he called, panic building as he realised that his voice refused to sound,

“Peter!” he yelled louder, and then his whole left side felt as if it were on fire. _God how it hurts_ , he just wanted it to end. The whole world suddenly went dark and Hogan wasn’t sure where he was anymore. It seemed his eyes weren’t working. None of his senses were. All he wanted was his Peter.

“PETER!” he yelled again, when suddenly, a slightly accented voice reached out to him,

“Colonel Hogan?”

It wasn’t a familiar voice, and it sounded German, which was strange, but at least he could hear it,

“Yes?” the Colonel rasped,

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Colonel…Robert…Hogan…”

“Very good,” the voice responded, and Hogan felt another stab of fear and anxiety,

“Have you….have you seen…Peter?” he croaked and the voice laughed,

“Yes I have,” it replied,

“Can you….tell me?”

“Only if you can tell me something first,” the voice asked, and Hogan felt a spike of hope. He was going to see Peter again, “anything…”

“What is the name of the French underground agent that you are always in contact with?”

“…Tiger,” Hogan replied as soon as he could. He wondered if Peter was okay. Was he going to mind his absence with this stranger?

“Thank you. And where does she stay?”

“…Heimstrasse dreizhen….Dusseldorf,” Hogan quickly supplied,

“Many thanks my dearest Hogan. Now, I believe I saw Peter go over there, where you saw him last, why don’t you go and join him?”

“Yes…”

And then Hogan smiled widely, when after a few moments, Peter appeared in front of him, leaning against a tree, eating an apple, as the rain dripped down gently now, subsiding from its earlier downpour.

Hogan thought to himself he must learn to trust that voice from now on.

 

* * *

 

 

Strauss grinned as he left Hogan’s room, precious information in hand. Hogan had been set up on an IV drip an hour ago, and his limbs were now tied down to the bed, the wounds stitched and bandaged to prevent too much blood loss or infection. There would be no point to a dead Hogan, who is worth his weight in gold for the information that he has.

Nothing could stop the screaming though, but the SS guards standing guard at Hogan’s door were trained well. They knew better than to so much as flinch as the prisoner started yelling and struggling whenever Strauss went back into the room. They didn’t know what the doctor did everytime he went in there, and even when they went in to help with the cleaning, they never questioned. It was not their place. They watched Strauss fold the piece of paper he carried as he walked towards the stairs with a spring in his step. Clearly, something had gone right for the doctor.

Kessel was half way through his reports when Strauss opened the door and walked in, dropping the slip of paper on the major’s desk with a triumphant flourish,

“What are you smiling about?” Kessel grumbled, as he picked the paper up, not in the mood for any of the doctor’s theatrics.

“Read the slip,” the doctor prompted nodding at the piece of paper.

Kessel did so and his brow furrowed, “Whose address is this?”

“Leader of the Dusseldorf underground, none other than Tiger herself,”

Kessel sat up straight so fast he nearly cracked his knee on the desk, “From Hogan?” he asked in wonder, disbelieving that Strauss could have achieved such results,

“From the _wunderkind_ himself,” Strauss confirmed and leaned against the desk, “now what do you say to this new technique?”

Kessel folded the paper and raised his eyebrows, “If we get Tiger, I’ll buy you drinks for the next month,”

Strauss’ laughter echoed down the corridor as it rang out, their victory sweet after so many months of trials.

 

* * *

 

 

“This little visitor dropped in last night,” Kinch said, pointing to the boy on the floor, sitting in a bedraggled heap, his head bowed and his breathing uneven,

“Is that an SS officer?” Carter said, stopping dead in his tracks as Kinch’s lamplight fell on the silver lapels,

“Sacre bleu!” LeBeau exclaimed, needing to hold onto Carter for a little grounding at the sight of an SS officer sitting in their very secret, formerly very safe tunnel system, “What do we do?” he half exclaimed and half asked a disturbed looking sergeant, who frowned and shook his head,

“For all we know, Gestapo is going to bear down on us right –”

“No!” they were all startled by the outburst from the boy on the floor, his accent heavy and pronunciation sloppy “No, please you have to listen to me,”

“And why should we, SS pig?” LeBeau spat, his hatred for the SS not a new development,

“Please…I am not SS. Not anymore. I defected months ago, but then was recruited by a major against my will. There was nothing I could do,”

“If you defected, why are you still in Germany?” Kinch asked,

“Because Britain has been using me as a spy. That is how I know the location of these tunnels. You must believe I am not Gestapo!” his pale cheeks were heating now with the vigour of his protests and his breathing had evened out, “also…” he paused, as if unsure he should go on, “I was taken by Major Kessel. I don’t know why, but I had caught his eye. And not one day ago, I escorted Colonel Robert Hogan up the stairs to a torture room,” he dropped his eye contact then, “I told him a lie. I said they had my family and therefore I couldn’t let him go when I asked me to. I couldn’t tell him them the truth, as I would blow my cover,”

There was a moment of silence as LeBeau, Carter and Kinch exchanged meaningful glances, “How do you know it was a torture chamber?” Carter asked, almost wanting the boy to be wrong,

“Because we hear the screams of other prisoners. I have taken the bodies away after the interrogations are finished. I will tell you more about the procedures that the Colonel will face. I only ask you let me up from this, as I was wounded in my escape,” he nodded downwards and for the first time Kinch noticed that his leg was indeed a bloody mess, the pants torn and the skin mangled. It was testament to the boy’s fear earlier that meant he could outrun Kinch for as long as he did,

“If you were a spy then you would have a code name,” Kinch said and the boy nodded,

“I do, it’s Little Boy Blue,” he said and LeBeau shook his head,

“One day, England will learn to come up with better names,” he muttered,

“No matter,” Kinch said, “We will check with London. In the meantime, Carter will stay with you. LeBeau, with me,”

And with that, Kinch walked away from the boy with LeBeau in tow. Kinch ran a hand through his hair, dislodging his beanie before stuffing it back on again. How much was true? How much was to be believed? And just what kind of torture were they putting Hogan through?

 

* * *

 

 

“Alright, thanks Mama Bear,” Kinch hung up and exchanged a surprised look with LeBeau. Little Boy Blue checked out. The only question that remained was why he left his post and came to their base of operations.

“So he’s the last contact we have with Hogan,” LeBeau said as they started a path back to where their new ally,

“Yes. Though the news that he has brought us is not exactly reassuring” Kinch added and LeBeau nodded,

“I hoped he was wrong,” he admittedly silently and Kinch grimaced,

“Me too, buddy,” he said, as they rounded a bend and the SS trooper met Kinch’s softened gaze,

“Do you believe me now?” he asked, and Kinch nodded, throwing the handcuff keys to Carter,

“Let him up, Andrew,” he said and Carter did as he was bidden, crouching down, “We apologise for the handcuffs,” Kinch said, not sounding terribly sorry, the SS trooper thought, “but we have to take no chances,”

“I understand,” was the boy’s reply, as he gingerly got to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his leg and leant against the wall, “and I apologise for running. I have only been told about this place once before and I wasn’t sure where I was when I couldn’t keep going any longer,” he smiled rather wistfully, “that was when you stumbled upon me in the dark and we both were…what is the word…”

“Surprised?” Kinch supplied and the boy nodded,

“Ah, yes, that,”

An awkward silence fell for a moment, before Carter cleared his throat, “I’m Andrew,” he said, holding his hand out,

“Rudolph Baum,” the SS trooper replied and LeBeau chuckled somewhat sardonically,

“Of course you are,” he muttered under his breath, but he held his hand out none the less, “Corporal Louis LeBeau,” he said, and Rudolph shook his hand with a smile,

“Free French?” he asked, “I have heard and admired many of the brave exploits of that group of men. You are rather spectacular,”

LeBeau puffed up like a peacock and grinned, “I could like this guy,” he said and the other men managed to crack a smile,

“Well that just leaves me, then,” Kinch said, “Sergeant James Kinchloe, at your service,”

“It is a pleasure to meet you…standing up,” Rudolph added and Kinch laughed wholeheartedly,

“Let’s get your leg fixed up, shall we?” Kinch turned,

“That would be prudent,” the SS trooper grinned rather abashedly, and limped after the three men he had just met, the sound of thunder and rain penetrating down into the darkness and accompanying them back to the heart of their underground system.

 

* * *

 

 

“HALT! HALTEN SIE!” The bellow startled Tiger right out of her bed, the darkness of her apartment suddenly flooded with light, blinding her as she lay on the ground and the sound of harsh German, heavy footfalls, the smell of gunpowder and the sound of the thunderstorm overwhelmed her senses,

“What…” she mumbled, as she was dragged upright quite bodily,

“We have her sir!” a voice yelled out of the mess of bodies that Tiger struggled to see from the painful lock across her shoulders a soldier, _Gestapo,_ she thought with sudden fear, was holding her in.

From the mass of people, a major appeared, reaching out to her chin and lifting it, all the better to view it in the torchlight of around 20 torches, “Beautiful,” he muttered, “such a pity she’s also a traitor to the Third Reich” a ripple of laughter sounded around her, while Tiger felt a horrible sinking in the pit of her belly as the day all agents always feared had come,

“You’ll never break me,” she spat, and the Major laughed,

“They said we’ll never break the great Colonel Hogan, and yet, here we are, you being his gift to us,”

Tiger’s eyes widened in absolute horror. What had they done to the Colonel that they had gotten the information of her location out of him? What had they done…?

And with that bombshell still ringing in her ears, the major ordered her to be taken away.

* * *

 

**HELLO! Remember me? The absent author. I know its very short but I felt I had to give you guys something. This is always in the back of my mind. Sorry sorry sorry for the abuse poor Hogan is going through. And I would love to assure you all that it will end soon but...I don't want to lie to you.**

**Thanks for sticking with me! I know it's been difficult with such long breaks. Much love!**

  
**Aza**  


	8. Somebody to Die For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's just say that stakes get a little higher, you may want to hug Kinch, and everyone will hate Kessel

**Chapter 8 – Somebody to Die for**

**_I’ve got nothing left to live for, Got no reason yet to die_ **

**_But when I’m standing in the gallows, I’ll be staring at the sky_ **

**_Because no matter where they take me, Death I will survive_ **

**_And I will never be forgotten, With you by my side_ **

 

With his leg fixed, and a hot mug of the little coffee they could spare, Rudolph sat in the main hub of the underground centre. He moaned aloud as he took his first sip and Kinch imagined that if it were possible, the young man may have turned into a puddle.

“ _Das ist_ _sehr gut_ , _danke,”_ the young officer said, his voice much calmer now, and the tremors he had been experiencing dampened, as they had moved to the slightly warmer central tunnel,

“We have a few questions, as you might imagine,” Kinch said, taking a seat next to Rudolph, as the others followed him and took their own seats surrounding the radio table where Rudolph had sat,

“ _Ja,_ I thought so. You may proceed,” Rudolph answered with a smile and Kinch thought he could get used to this young man’s earnest nature,

“You said that Kessel had chosen you specially, do you have any idea why?” LeBeau asked, turning the officer’s gaze his way. There was a moment where a shadow passed across the young man’s face, before he seemed to steel himself,

“My father, he was in the Gestapo, well before this war started,” Rudolph shifted slightly before going on, “He and Kessel were close, and I know they were involved in some mission many years ago that made them even closer. But I also know that my father made him swear that he would never recruit me. My father traded his life in the end, for this war,” Rudolph broke eye contact, taking a moment to gather himself, “and my mother and I, we thought that would be the end of our grieving. I was 16 when Papa died. Kessel got to me on my seventeenth birthday, two years ago, against Mama’s wishes. I was all she had left, you see. But Kessel wouldn’t hear it and told me he could make me a great officer once day.” Rudolph paused to take another drink, well aware of the pity in the gazes of the allied soldiers in front of him, “I started my training but got diverted to the Russian divisions last year,”

“But you were only eighteen!” Carter intervened, dismay clear on his face. LeBeau frowned,

“That does not matter here, Carter,” the Frenchman said quietly and Rudolph nodded,

“No it doesn’t. And so whatever plans Kessel had for me were ruined. But there was little I could do. As I came to the end of my rotation, I was contacted by the underground, saying they had use for me when I returned to Germany. I had seen the war in Russia. And I know…I know I am young. But I know enough to see that this war had to be stopped. So I was recruited, and from there I thought I would go to Berlin and join the SS division as the underground arranged. That was when I got the letter from Kessel saying he had transferred me and I was to report to him. This was _vor einem Monat,_ er, how you say,”

“A month ago, we got you,” Kinch said and Rudolph nodded gratefully,

“I truly do not know why he wanted me, but the underground was happy enough to let me go because he is in a position of power here in this area,” Rudolph took another sip as the men around him nodded in understanding,

“So why did you break cover? How were you injured?” LeBeau asked,

“I saw the Colonel brought in and simply had to act. Understand, I have seen what has happened to others that are brought into the HQ and I knew I had to try and save him, as I have heard about you here at Stalag 13 and I know how vital this escape centre is. I also heard the transmissions in the underground network, saying that the Colonel was missing, so I knew him to be the real Papa Bear,”

“How do you know so much about us?” Carter asked, for once not as trusting as he normally was, and Kinch had to agree. A lot of the underground cells were completely in the dark about their real identity, and it was only their most immediate contacts that knew the true identity of Papa Bear. The sergeant was therefore very surprised when a light blush spread across the young officer’s face,

“Ah well…” he faded off,

“Rudolph?” Kinch prompted, his curiosity piqued,

“Well, I…I heard about it though Tiger, and on her description of your activities I must say I was...curious and I’ve been following your activity ever since. You’re all just so brave and…I always wanted to be like you” he finished in a rush, the flush turning his cheeks an endearing shade of red as he shyly ducked his head. LeBeau and Kinch exchanged looks, fighting the urge to chuckle. It was good to know despite the horror of his life, the nineteen-year-old was still, at heart, a boy,

“Ah well, that’s alright then. But we’re really not all that brave,” Kinch said, “we just don’t see any other choice,”

Rudolph nodded thoughtfully, “yes I suppose. But to us locals you are brave. This is not your war in many ways and yet here you are. It was why I decided I had to get back and tell you about the Colonel. I was rostered for leave anyway, so I applied and got it yesterday,”

“Oh, so you left HQ with no problems?” Carter asked,

“ _Ja, kein problem_ ,” Rudolph winced then, as he recalled how he was injured, “I was on my way here, just through this surrounding forest, when a farmer spotted me creeping and thought I must be an escaped prisoner, or a commando, as it was very dark. He shot before asking any questions and ran off to find the guard. In a hurry, though I had initially intended to come to you through your known underground contacts, I managed to get myself to your tree stump, as Tiger described it, and climbed in. And so we are here,”

“And so we are here,” Kinch repeated, nodding his understanding, “But what about the Colonel?” he asked, getting to the question that had weighed on them since the moment they ascertained who Rudolph was,

“Yes,” the young officer said, his voice taking on a sombre note, as he gripped Hogan’s dog tags around his neck and took them off, “I brought these with me, so that you knew I was telling the truth. They take them off the prisoner’s in case they die so they can bury them anonymously.” He placed the tags reverently on the table, before looking up to their expectant gazes, “I have come to tell you that you must get the Colonel out within the next couple of days or he will die.”

A shocked silence followed his words, only the wind moving through the caverns discernible, despite the four men present.

“What do you mean he _will_ die?” LeBeau asked, fear gripping his heart even as he asked the question, “are they putting him to death? An execution?”

“I wish it was a nice a death as that,” if possible, the men in the cavern looked even more stressed as Rudolph continued, “Dr. Strauss is one of the greatest psychiatrists in Germany,” Rudolph grimaced, “but he turned his use of medicine to torture and it is rumoured he has created something so potent that the prisoner’s own mind turns against them. I know he is the one who is working on Colonel Hogan, because I escorted the Colonel to his room, when he and the _Englander_ were split up, and I know that it will end badly for the Colonel if we do not get him out of there in the next day or two,”

Rudolph looked up to see the horror etched into each of the three faces in front of him,

“But…” Carter trailed off,

“No.” LeBeau said, simply refusing to believe it, “No. The Colonel would not succumb. He is-”

“Human!” Rudolph said, desperation to make these men understand how urgent this was spurring him on to raise his voice and cut off the corporal, “He is human! And he will break. Every man has a breaking point and the Colonel will reach his if we do not get him out of Gestapo’s hands,”

“How?” Kinch asked, his voice sounding hollow to his ears, momentarily too stunned to do anything but sit, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. After all their planning, after all their hope…

“You must have a plan!” Rudolph exclaimed, a pleading note in his voice, as he looked from one shocked face to another, and was surprised when a dry and dull laugh was torn from Kinch’s lips,

“Oh we have a plan alright but it was based on a timescale of a week,” the sergeant covered his eyes with his hands, leaning forward in his chair, as a haunting silence fell in the cavern, and Rudolph slumped back into his seat, wanting to reach out and comfort the sergeant but unsure whether it would be accepted.  

Carter felt an ache in his belly as he considered, truly considered what it would be like, when that office was emptied of the Colonel’s belongings. When they took his clothes and folded it neatly to be sent back to his family in the states. When they took down his posters, and packed away his stationary, the soldier on his desk, the dried rose Tiger gave him a while ago, his favourite cigars. When the laughter, the reassurance and leadership they had come to rely on was gone, and the sergeant felt nauseous, his stomach roiling with his emotions.

“We have to get him now then,” Carter said aloud, unable to control himself, and LeBeau almost growled when he stood up so fast his chair was flipped over,

“How Carter?!” he demanded, his own endurance for bad news at its very end, “ _Mon Colonel_ is in the _Bosche_ hands and we are _here_  in this stinking camp, sitting on our hands! How are we going to help?” he had moved forward with each wild gesture of his hands, so that for once he was towering over Carter, but that changed as Carter leapt up too,

“We find a way!” He yelled back, shoving LeBeau so that the Frenchman stumbled backwards and nearly tripped over his own chair, his calves stinging as he collided with the wood. Carter’s face was red and his voice had cracked with the stress of the last few days and this new news that threw all their plans into disarray, “We HAVE TO!” the sergeant shouted, less at LeBeau and more at the world at large, the words as much an order as much as they were a plea and it was that that prompted LeBeau to reign in his anger, glaring at the young sergeant, who stood hugging himself now, trying to control his breathing, “he’s our brother,” Carter finished,

“Carter…” LeBeau began in a softer tone, looking over to Kinch for some support, but then felt as if he had received another blow, this time somewhere in his chest, when he saw the blank expression on the sergeant’s face. Kinch had held up so well until now, leading them onwards with purpose and determination. Now, he looked empty as he stared at the floor, his normally expressive eyes shuttered, locking the world out.  

“He has to come back,” Carter mumbled, his voice thick, his eyes suspiciously bright, forcing LeBeau’s eyes back onto the him and then LeBeau had already crossed the floor to where his friend was, and drawn him into a hug, speaking into the collar of the sergeant’s jumpsuit as he did,

“We’ll get him back, Carter. We will,”

 

* * *

 

 

Hogan brought the mail into the house and threw it on the little side table along with his keys, as he shrugged off his coat and shut the front door behind him, trailing a little of the early snow that had fallen soft and gentle across the city. Their house was the same one he had woken up in all those months ago, but he had been wrong about its settings, as they weren’t in the middle of nowhere, they were actually near to a city, back home in the States, on some well-deserved leave. He had told Peter of his disorientation, but the man had simply frowned sympathetically and told him that’s what the psychiatrist had said would be normal. He had shell-shock and though it wasn’t severe, there would be times when there were lapses in his memory.

It had been a very long time since he’d had any lapses though, Hogan thought with satisfaction. He knew very well that their house was set up on a hill, with large land that he and Newkirk had bought when they moved back to the states after the war, and it was beautiful. Such a nice contrast to the POW camp they had endured, with no tall fences anywhere, and no one else around, just as he liked it after the years of close quarter living.

“Peter, you home?” Hogan called, his voice infused with warmth and satisfaction as he made his way over the luxuriously soft brown carpet the living room was covered with.

His life was perfect. He was a general now, currently on loan to a private security company as they planned defences on the north east coast and wanted Hogan as a consultant. He had been happy to oblige so long as he could keep Newkirk as his aide. The general staff had been almost too happy to transfer Newkirk across from the RAF to the US Air Force, and as soon as the papers were signed the corporal, now lieutenant, was to be with him for the rest of his career, if he so chose. _And he damn well better choose to, I just stood in line for an hour to get him this bloody brand of tea._

“Peter?” Hogan called again, as he shrugged off his shoes and collapsed onto the leather couch, tired but happy to see that the fire was lit, as winter had come early and temperatures were dropping faster than he remembered. He rubbed his head tiredly. Everything would be one hundred per cent perfect if it weren’t for the nightmares he had. And he could only imagine they were a product of the shell shocked thing the psychiatrist told him about, because nothing else would make sense. They occurred infrequently, and they were short and replaced soon enough with other dreams, but he couldn't help but wonder why it was always the same. His eyes drifted upwards to the crystal chandelier that Peter loved so much as his mind wandered, the crystal facets throwing gentle warm light over the living room. It was always the same waves of loneliness, the same pain, the same voice in those nightmares. He couldn’t remember what the voice said anymore. He only knew that it promised his release if he cooperated and he always did. Afterwards he always awoke every morning with a very pliant and utterly gorgeous aide in his arms, so who was he to complain over a little discomfort? After all, he had endured worse at Stalag 13. 

Hogan was brought back to the present as Peter entered the front door, kicking it open with a foot, “Rob, love, give us a hand,” he said, his hands full of what appeared to be groceries. Hogan sprang to his feet, chuckling as Newkirk nearly tripped over the welcome mat as he was wont to do, taking the bags to reveal his partner’s handsome face, sprinkled with snowflakes, “blimey, the traffic out there,” he muttered, shutting the door as Hogan took the groceries to the kitchen, putting the brown bags on the counter and peering inside to see what his partner had brought home. 

He was in the process of taking the groceries out of the bag when lean arms wrapped around his waist, and suffused his being as Peter nuzzled his neck, 

“Don’t I get a hello?” Peter’s voice asked, low and sultry, and Hogan felt the involuntary smile spread across his face, as he turned in the man’s embrace to place a gentle kiss on his lips, then his nose, then his forehead. Peter’s arms moved to wrap around his neck, leaning fully into Hogan’s warmth, “Hello,” the colonel said, humouring the shorter man but meaning the welcome he wove into the word,

“Mmm, you’re nice to come home to,” Peter mumbled and Hogan chuckled, his arms going around Peter’s waist, placing another feather-light kiss on his jaw,

“You bet,” he said, cocky as ever, “I got your favourite tea, the line was two blocks long and I've now got hypothermia” he said into Peter’s hair and he could feel more than see the smile,

“I don’t deserve you,” Peter replied and Hogan chuckled,

“I believe that’s my line,” he said, as Newkirk pulled back and they shared a long look, Hogan admiring the shade of blue that had fast become his favourite colour because it was always accompanied by such affection, and that too from someone who knew him for what he was, not just _who_ he was and _what_ he had done.

Yes, Hogan lived a charmed life.

 

* * *

 

“Well, that’s five agents’ names in two days, Herr Doctor Strauss,” Major Kessel said, looking at the preening doctor who stood practically glowing in front of the fire. “Better work than most of our people could do in months,”

“Thank you, Major,” the doctor said, “Hogan is pliant, and, I am surprised to say, stabilising,” the doctor smiled, “He has very much calmed down and the pain he feels is greatly reduced, especially as I am now visiting at the same times every day. Whatever situation his mind has created seems to be working to keep Hogan fully in our grasp,”

Kessel leaned back against his desk and nodded, smiling, “I am sorry I ever doubted you Doctor,” he added, crossing his legs at the ankle, the jackboots he had just polished shining in the brightly lit office, the mahogany of the desk and the black contrasting each other starkly, “I will see to it you are paid accordingly. I will send the reports on to Berlin,”

“Thank you, Herr Major,” the Doctor snapped his heels together and walked briskly out of the room, closing the intricately detailed wooden doors behind him gently. Kessel smiled to himself. This whole project was going marvelously. The prisoner had calmed down; the dosage of the drug had finally been perfected. Kessel got up and poured himself a shot of brandy, allowing the hot burn of the whiskey to burn away the edge that he had been feeling for days.

As well as everything was going he just wasn’t ready to simply accept it as the Doctor had, putting it all down to good luck. Hogan was surrounded by mystery for a reason. Nothing ever went to plan around him, and Kessel would be damned if he would join the ranks of the many officers, sent to the front because of mistakes they had foolishly made. He would see this through to the end. Whether that was his own or Hogan’s was yet to be seen.

 

* * *

 

 

For the first time since the war had began, LeBeau found himself truly considering deserting. It had been bad enough when he had been captured and tortured then dumped into Stalag 13. Then colonel Hogan came along and changed all that. And now that there was a large chance their Colonel was gone for good…LeBeau sighed, resting on the desk with their coffee pot radio, watching the gentle rise and fall of Newkirk’s sleeping form absentmindedly, as his fingers fiddled with the little toy soldier Hogan kept on the desk, a present from his nephew back home.

Earlier, after the horrible news, Kinch had pulled himself out of his shock, and quickly ordered Carter and LeBeau to see to it that Rudolph was clothed and fed appropriately, then given a bed for the night, as the young man had started to doze in his chair. He had protested that he wished to stay with them to plan their new tactics but Kinch had shook his head and gently guided the young man to a bunk in the next room over, telling him that they would need him at full alertness tomorrow and that that wasn’t going to be the case if he was falling asleep. When Kinch had returned, and Carter and LeBeau had seen to Rudolph, they met back in the cavern and watched as Kinch drew from his last reserves to create a new plan. “I’ll meet you upstairs when I figure it out,” he said and they had nodded, sensing that he needed some time, as they all did, to try and cope, and perhaps even prepare themselves for the worst – that they might be too late to save the man who was, really, only in this situation because he had saved _them_.

LeBeau sighed. As much as he wanted to believe that yes, _this time_ they would come up with the correct plan, his faith was battered and bruised. First it began with Newkirk’s return and sickness, both physical, and though he didn’t want to admit it, mental. Now the knowledge that the Colonel was being tortured and abused, pumped for all that precious information that he held in that intelligent mind of his, drained LeBeau of what little energy he had, leaving him with a bone-deep weariness.

Pulling him out of his dreary musings, Carter walked through the door, shutting it behind him with a quiet click and leaning against the wardrobe, crossing his arms across his chest, “How’s Peter doing?” he asked, looking at the corporal and LeBeau dredged up a smile from somewhere to reply,

“He’ll sleep through the night and I hope to bribe Schultz to let him sleep through roll call,”

“Well good, he needs it,” Carter replied, and a silence fell between the two of them. Just as LeBeau was about to ask Carter what he thought about Rudolph, Kinch opened the door and motioned for the two of them to follow him, his eyes heavy with grief hidden behind the sharper light of determination.  

They did as bid and followed him silently, the sleeping men of Barracks 2 undisturbed by their passage, used to their nightly activities, as they descended into the tunnels.

LeBeau and Carter took a seat around Kinch’s desk looking expectantly at the sergeant,

“Well?” Carter asked, the unmistakeable note of hope so strong in his voice, LeBeau nearly winced for his own, more cynical view of the world,

“I have an idea,” Kinch said, ‘it’s wild and its risky and frankly, Colonel Hogan would never approve,”

LeBeau snorted despite himself, “That’s exactly the sort of plan he _would_ approve,” he said, pleased to draw a chuckle out of the sergeant’s mouth,

“Yes well, here it is. We’re going to Gestapo HQ,”

LeBeau and Carter weren’t even remotely surprised, “I expected nothing less,” LeBeau said, his usual humour somewhat subdued by the pall of worry that had fallen over their group, “How are we doing it?”

Kinch pointed at the table, at the map that was overlaid by a set of roughly drawn blueprints, “These,” Kinch said, picking up the blueprints and handing them over to LeBeau and Carter for closer inspection, “were drawn for us by Rudolph because he refused to go to sleep and insisted he try and help. He said the best point of entry would be this back wall, as the window to Colonel Hogan’s room is on the third floor here,” he pointed to the rear end of the map,

“So, what, we just climb up, open the window, get the Colonel out and we’re home?” Carter asked, somewhat, rather understandably, surprised. Kinch chuckled,

“No, the Germans don’t make anything that easy. Rudolph also handed me a list of things to be wary of at HQ in case that was where we wanted to go, and we’re lucky he did. The window is loaded with C4, the controller on the inside to the right side under the window, and if we open it and don’t diffuse in 30 seconds, the whole room goes up,” Carter and LeBeau seemed to freeze.

“Mon Dieu, Kinch this is the worst plan I’ve ever heard!” LeBeau finally exclaimed as he found his voice, Carter nodded fervently next to him,

“No it ain’t,” Kinch said, his gaze hardening as it turned to Carter, “Andrew you’re the best demo man this side of the channel,” he started,

“Yeah, I blow things up!” the sergeant interrupted, taking a step away from the table and dropping the blueprints as if they had burnt him, “I don’t-”

Kinch’s very carefully constructed emotional shields broke as a wave of frustration, irritation and guilt washed over him, “You do as you’re damn well ordered!” he barked, his voice echoing in the cavern, and Carter looked like he had just been kicked.

More guilt flooded Kinch as he realised what he had done and he sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes, “I’m…sorry, Carter, I didn’t mean to yell,” he muttered,

“No it’s okay, you’re right,” Carter replied, his eyes downcast, voice subdued and his shoulders tight with apprehension, “I shouldn’t have questioned you,”

“No,” Kinch looked up and met Carter’s gaze, looking up at him from under his lashes, “It’s been a rough day, forgive me?” he asked, his voice sincere and Carter nodded,

“Sure, Kinch. I mean, I know it’s been hard without the Colonel,” there was a moment of silence then, “but, I’ve never done this before,” he added, the note of vulnerability underlying that admission making Kinch feel like the monster mother’s warn their children away from,

“I was going to suggest you practice here with a few C4 timers,”  Kinch said, lowering his voice and talking more quietly, offering an olive branch.

“I…I can try, Kinch,” Carter didn't sound sure but he didn't want the senior sergeant angry at him, 

“You can do it,” LeBeau said, forcing the optimism into his tone, “this is nothing for someone as good as you!” he added and was pleased to see Carter relax slightly,

Kinch wanted to quit right there, tell LeBeau that he would be a much better leader, a nicer, calmer leader, but then he realised that he was just running away from his problems, and never  in the history of the world had that ever worked. _And you have no right to take the frustration out on your comrades_ Kinch rebuked himself, before drawing his attention back to the conversation at hand,

“Andrew, you can do it, if I didn’t believe so I would not have asked it of you,’ Kinch said aloud and turned to LeBeau, “in addition, they have a listening device in the room, so I want you to go grab Daniels from Barracks 3 and whip us up some disrupting devices, do you think you can manage?” Kinch asked and the French corporal nodded,

“Yes, no problem, Kinch”

“Good. Once Newkirk is awake I’ll talk him through what we’re going to do, then I’ll get to checking our climbing gear to make sure everything is in order,”

“Great!” LeBeau said, nodding, brutally stamping down the rising hope he felt in him. He would do his very best in this mission, but he would not allow himself to believe unless the Colonel was standing in front of them, whole and alive. His heart could take only so much heartbreak,

“Will you tell Peter tomorrow, Kinch?” Carter asked and the sergeant nodded,

“Yeah, I will. Then I’ll probably spend the rest of the day telling him he definitely cannot accompany us on this mission,”

“Good luck on that,” Le Beau said, before pausing and saying, “what about the guards outside the room?”

“We’ll have to be very quiet but…if they do hear us, we kill them,” Kinch finished with a grimace, and the other men, credit to them, simply nodded. It wasn’t their style, but these were not normal times, “we cannot risk them alerting other guards,”

“And then how do we get the Colonel out if he’s unconscious?” Carter asked, also trying to think of possible problems they might have,

“I was planning on building a harness for him,” Kinch said, “so we can lower him down, out the window. There is no buildings on that side, it just faces the fields outside the town and it will be very dark, tomorrow is new moon. We shouldn’t raise any suspicions.”

“What’s the design?” LeBeau asked,

“I was going to leave that to Newkirk, he’s better than I could ever be and this way he feels less left out,” Kinch managed a wry smile, “and will hopefully be so distracted he’ll forget to punch me,”

"What about our old plan?" Carter suddenly piped up, remembering the elaborate task they had set themselves and the 20 officers who were coming to Stalag 13 in three days,

"We have to go ahead with it," Kinch said, "even if we get Hogan back, he can't come back into camp without risking Kessel coming back and taking him away from us,"

"So we still discredit Kessel?" LeBeau said,

"Yeah. Then we can reintroduce the Colonel, maybe as an escapee from Gestapo, or even use the underground to 'transfer' him back," Kinch shrugged, 'that's a problem for later though, we need to get this done first, yeah?" the sergeant looked up to the other two and they nodded, while he took a deep breath to steady himself. 

LeBeau took a moment to look at Kinch, taking in how tired he looked, his slumped figure, his shoulders tight with tension and his normally focused gaze a little vague even as he looked at them, lacking his usual sharpness. His hat was askew and his jacket was more rumpled than it usually looked. Leadership seemed to weight heavy on him, but LeBeau still couldn’t help but smile because under all that tension, there was concern for his team. He was a man driven by his morals and stuck to a strict code of honour, and that was one of his greatest redeeming traits, “You’re a good leader,” he said quietly, wishing he could take that tension away from the man but not sure how to do it, “don’t feel like you’re anything less, _mon frère_ ”

For a moment the two of them just exchanged a look, a warmth spreading through Kinch as a pleasant counterpoint to the cold fear that had gripped him nearly from the moment he took command. Before he could reply to LeBeau Carter cut in,

“We should get started, yeah?” he prompted from the side, having completely missed the moment between his colleagues, and Kinch broke his gaze to look at the sergeant,

“No, that’s all for now, get to bed,” Kinch ordered, “get some rest and we’ll get started first thing tomorrow,” he dropped into his seat at the radio command station,

“You’re…not coming?’ LeBeau asked,

“I am,” Kinch said, “But I sent a message to the underground that we were going to need transport waiting for us near the hammelburg bridge, they said they’ll call back,”

“Okay,” LeBeau and Carter chorused,

“Don’t stay up too late,” LeBeau added as he and the sergeant turned away towards the ladder, and Kinch nodded, feeling the pall of anxiety fall over him again, though he was insincere in his agreement. 

_As if I could sleep now anyway._

 

* * *

 

 

**Hope that makes up for the long as gap! Thanks so much to everyone who is following this story and all commenters/people who have given kudos. I write for you guys!**

**< 3 Aza**


	9. How to Save A Life

**Chapter 9 – How to Save A Life**

_Where did I go wrong?_  
_I lost a friend_  
_Somewhere along in the bitterness_  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_Had I known how to save a life_

‘What do you mean no?!?” Newkirk’s demand was so loud, that down in the tunnels, LeBeau paused his work on the microphone disruption devices that he and Daniels were working on, and glanced at the trapdoor.

Above them, Newkirk slammed the newly created harness onto the table, glaring at Kinch, “I made this ruddy thing, he got left there because of  _me being too injured to bloody move_ , and now you’re telling me I can’t even get him out of there!”

Kinch glared right back, before turning his attention back to the climbing gear he was trying to fix for their mission tonight, “That is precisely what I’m telling you, it’s good to know your ears aren’t as broken as your arm,” he sniped back pointedly, “just how useful do you think you’re going to be when you can’t lift your arm more than a couple of inches without nearly collapsing in pain?” the temporary commander asked and watched Newkirk’s face as he registered that this was a valid point,

“But-”

“But nothing! You will be a danger to us and yourself, Newkirk, and I will not have you take any risks,”

“Who the hell-” Newkirk stated, his eyes practically glowing with indignant anger, despite the logic behind the ban being apparent to him,

“Your current commanding officer,” Kinch’s voice might as well have been steel when he cut across Newkirk. There was a moment when English corporal looked like he was going to continue his argument, before the fight seemed to drain right out of him, and he sank back into the chair,

“I feel so useless,” the words were so quiet that Kinch nearly missed them over a wave of laughter from a group of men on the other side of Barracks 2. Kinch felt as if a hand was squeezing his heart, as he looked at the Englishman who had started fiddling with the threads on the harness they were going to use for Hogan, understanding now why he was so adamantly demanding to be taken along. He had woken up earlier that morning in less of a foul mood than expected, though he still wasn’t talking to LeBeau as he was the one who sedated him through his food and drink. Colour was returning to his skin and though it was clear he was not up for anything more strenuous than breathing, he was clearly in an improved condition, news of which was a sweet relief for the otherwise downtrodden men of barracks 2. Kinch reached out and placed a gentle hand on Newkirk’s good shoulder, causing the corporal to look up in surprise,

“You are alive and you have survived to design this excellent harness for Hogan’s rescue,” Kinch nodded to the leather contraption sitting on the table, “it might not feel as useful as physically going in after him, but when he gets back, he’ll be happy to know you were safe. You are far from useless Peter, without you, we wouldn’t have a chance of getting him out in one piece,” They held each other’s gaze for a moment that seemed to stretch before Newkirk seemed to centre himself and nodded, “right you are, Kinch,” he said, his voice still quiet, but lacking that despondent tone that had infused it since the corporal had been returned to them. 

“I did it!” the loud exclamation accompanied by the banging of the trapdoor opening had them both jerking out of their moment of contemplation and turning to Carter, who excitedly bounded towards them, his arms full of wires and electronic boxes,

“You defused it?” Kinch asked, a slow smile spreading as Carter nodded,

“In 25.6 seconds!” Carter added and even Newkirk laughed, getting up somewhat gingerly and patting him on the back,

“Well done Andrew, me old mate,” he said, grinning as the demolitions man puffed up,

“Now I’ll go practice it while hanging, as Rudolph said that it might feel different, and they could have placed the charges in an unexpected place,” and with that, he was back down the ladder into the tunnels,

“I had complete faith in him,” Newkirk said, turning to Kinch,

“Oh, sure,” Kinch replied and they both chuckled as they returned to the harness and climbing kits.

* * *

 

Night came upon them quickly, bringing with a snow and a blasting cold wind. Kinch frowned as they gathered outside for roll call, thinking that this weather might cause them all sorts of problems while climbing,

“It is very cold and windy, Kinch,” LeBeau said, the look on his face indicating to the sergeant that this was not just a casual comment about the weather, but that the Frenchman had been thinking along the same lines as Kinch,

“I know, but we will just have to manage,” Kinch replied.

Roll call finished quickly, as even the bald eagle himself wanted to get out of the quickly worsening weather conditions.

The three men hurried into the tunnels, bidding a worried looking Newkirk goodbye at the Colonel’s office, “Just…come back safe,” he said, watching them walk away and they nodded, understanding the frustration he must feel watching his mates walk away into danger while he sat in the prison camp.

They stripped quickly as they could, getting into their climbing gear now to limit the time of their exposure once they were outside gestapo HQ. Rudolph was also suiting up with them, painting his face with the black grease they used, “this weather will hinder us,” he said, looked at the others and Kinch nodded,

‘Yeah, but it will ruin every patrol out there too, it’s good news for us,”

“Especially because we have everything to lose,” LeBeau added, his face set in a grim mask of determination,

“Except we’re not going to lose,” Carter added in and the four of them paused, looking at each other, taking a moment to contemplate that no brave words could hide the fact that their chances of success were low and the risks were very high.

“For Hogan,” Kinch said, his low voice barely making it past the group of four,

“For Hogan,” the other three repeated and then moved off to the emergency tunnel, for better or worse, they were committed now.

* * *

 

The drive to gestapo HQ was tense, but problem free. Snow was battering their little van now, and the wind had picked up to gale force, throwing tree branches and whatever else that was not firmly held down, against the car as it made its way through the outskirts of town, heading to the eastern perimeter, where they would leave the car before walking ten minutes to the back wall of the HQ.

That ten-minute walk suddenly seemed like it was going to take a whole heap longer.

“Did you bring the snow gear for Hogan?” Kinch asked as he strapped his own spiked snow shoes on, the metal clanking against the bottom of the van, huddled as they were in the back,

“Yeah, it’s here,” Cart said, indicating a satchel, “I left the jacket in here though, cause the bag has no room,”

Kinch frowned, “He could be very sensitive to the cold after…” Kinch stopped himself there. Worry and fear had to wait until after Hogan was safely in their arms and out of gestapo claws,

“He can have my jacket,” Carter said without hesitation and Kinch nodded,

“We’re here,” LeBeau said, twisting in the driver’s seat as he pulled the van around to face back to Stalag 13 for a quick getaway, killing the engine, and manoeuvring himself into the back with the others,

“Okay, so let’s go over the play again,” Kinch said, “Carter?”

“Once we get to the window, I’ll open it and do a quick scan of what’s happening inside, before defusing the timer, which should be to the left of me,” Carter said,

“LeBeau?” Kinch prompted,

“I will steady Carter, and as soon as he is done, I will go straight for the Colonel, and put him in the harness, regardless of his consciousness,”

“Good, Rudolph?”

“I will stay outside, keeping an eye out for guards or patrols, though I know they do not patrol this area as they have a shortage of men. I will hoot if I hear or see anything,”

“And you’re sure you’ll be able to walk?” Kinch asked, “cause now’s your chance to pull out,” The young German seemed to pull himself up to sit a little straighter,

“I will do this for the sake of your commander,” he replied and Kinch accepted that the young man would not join them if he truly thought he was going to be a liability,

“Right, and I will be listening at the door for any signs of movement, although now it’s lights out across the building, correct?”

“Yes Kinch,”

“Alright,” Kinch picked up his grappling hook climbing set, “this is it. If we don’t make it-”

“We will,” LeBeau cut across him, “failure is not an option,”

Kinch looked about to argue before dropping it. If they were walking to their deaths, they would do it with their heads held high.

With that, they opened the back doors of the van, closing and locking it as the last man clambered out and into a foot of snow, the wind clawing at them, trying to get under their clothes, biting their skin through every crack and opening it could find,

“Damn this weather,” Kinch muttered under his breath as they started off, heads bent, and ears alert, walking down the empty road,

“I really don’t think we’ll have to worry-about-patrols-tonight,” LeBeau panted, the shorter man genuinely struggling to keep up, though he sank into the snow banks less than the others,

“No need to fear, we are nearly there,” Rudolph said, more used to these kinds of conditions than his companions,

“I fear I will tire before we even get there,” Kinch replied, his breaths also coming a little shorter and sharper than normal, his eyes watering in the terrific wind that pushed against them, as if nature itself was on the gestapo’s side tonight.

“No need to fear,” Rudolph repeated again, this time pointing in front of him, and through the white haze around them, they made out a dark shape rising in front of them, “That is the back wall,” he said, “come, we will have more shelter when we are closer,”

The promise of slightly improved conditions had them picking up their place, and finally, blessedly, coming to rest against the frigid concrete wall of Gestapo HQ, the red Nazi flags above them, waving madly in the wind, the windows all darkened and foreboding. They took a minute to gather themselves.

“Why is there no fence?” LeBeau asked, the question having bothered him from the moment they had spotted the HQ,

‘Because this is a secret. This is meant to just be a lodge for holidaying soldiers, not a military base,” Rudolph replied and LeBeau nodded his understanding,

“Well they’re about to lose a guest,” Carter said, his teeth flashing, a momentary spot of light in the otherwise extremely dim conditions,

“Let’s get to it,” Kinch leaned away from the wall, dropping his backpack as the other two did the same. They unpacked the climbing kit, snow barrelling in on them as they did, and Kinch squinted up, the wind and the darkness not at all helping him locate the right window,

“third floor, fourth window from the right,” Rudolph said, following Kinch’s gaze, “so the best place to launch would be…” he trailed off as he paced off to the left, about 10 metres from where the others were standing, “here,” he finished, his voice muted in the sheer blankets of snow, but carried by the wind,

Kinch merely nodded, and the others picked up their gear and moved to the right spot. Each of them readied their grapple gun and aimed at the high roof, five floors up from where they were, “lets hope German engineering holds us in place,” Kinch said, “on my count, three, two, one,” on one they each fired the guns, and winced in turn from the recoil as the grapple sped away from them. To what sounded like to the four espionage agents, an almighty clank and crack, two of the three hooks lodged themselves into something, while Carter’s came crashing back down, the young sergeant saved only by Rudolph’s reflexes, pulling him away from the heavy metal projectile.

There was silence for a full minute, as the three sat tensely, waiting for some reaction to the noise that sounded like an entire army to they who were trying to be as quiet as possible,

‘Thank God,” Kinch finally breathed out,

“But my hook didn’t work,” Carter said, looking completely put out,

“Doesn’t matter, you and LeBeau go up first, Rudolph and I will steady the lines from down here,”

“Okay,” Carter finished hooking all his tools to his belt, before hooking his climbing harness to the guide rope as LeBeau did the same from the right of him,

“Ready?’ Kinch asked, and the two men nodded, before putting their dominant arm and leg on the wall and pushing, so that the hook on the guide line slid upwards, the snow and the cold making the metal rub against each other with greater friction than normal. They then used their other arm and leg to pull on the guide rope and hoist themselves up. The hook clicked into place with each pull, and allowed them to reach further up and pull themselves with the assistance of the rope. 

It was slow going with the wind pushing and pulling them, and cold turning their fingers numb, but they were absolutely focused, keeping themselves moving ever upwards, past the first-floor window, the window itself providing useful crevices and cracks for latching onto, and then, tiring now, past the second window. For one heart stopping moment, as Carter went to put his weight onto the window sill, it cracked and he would have fallen to his death had the hook on the guide line not immediately locked into place with his sudden downward movement, leaving him dangling wildly in mid-air, LeBeau desperately reaching out to grab him and help him realign himself.

On the ground, their hearts going a mile a minute, Kinch and Rudolph had stifled their cries and instead focussed on keeping the guide rope as steady as physically possible, though it had been ripped out of Rudolph’s grasp thanks to the sudden change of weight. They watched with baited breath as Carter righted himself, before starting to climb once more, a cut on his face from banging his head against the wall, invisible to those on the ground, stinging the sergeant’s eyes and caused blood to obscure his vision,

“There’s blood in my eye,” he said, as they climbed and LeBeau shot him a concerned glance, “it’s just a scratch,” Carter was quick to reassure as he heaved himself upwards, their third floor target window coming into sight now,

‘Facial injuries bleed,” LeBeau replied, the lighter man naturally more agile and not struggling as much with the climb. A particularly nasty breeze hit them both just then and it was all they could do to cling to the wall and hope they could hold on until it passed. Carter took that moment to mop up some of blood with his scarf, hoping there would be a chance at the window to bandage it properly so he could see.

At last, at long last, with a massive heave, Carter managed to pull himself to face level with their target window, as LeBeau quickly followed to his right. The window ledge was wide and made of solid stone, unlike the wooden one below it, so Carter quickly manoeuvred himself onto it, sitting himself down, his burning muscles thankful for the rest. In another moment, LeBeau joined him and they both took in large lungful’s of bitterly cold air,

“Let me see your face,’ LeBeau said, taking Carter by the chin and turning his head to face him, “ah, that looks painful,” he said, drawing out a very dim torchlight to better see, not worried about anyone in the town or any guards on duty spotting a light due to the blanketing effect of the storm,

“It doesn’t hurt too much,” Carter said, “The cold has probably numbed it some, though,” he added with a quiet chuckle, as LeBeau used some utility tape and a strip of his shirt to make a makeshift bandage, if only to keep the blood out of Carter’s eyes,

“How’s that?” LeBeau asked and Carter reached up with a hand to feel it, mopping any remaining blood off his face,

“Perfect. Now, the window,” he said, turning around carefully, hooking a little lockable footrest onto his guide wire and handing the other side to LeBeau who did the same. It would provide a little platform to give them something to lean back on to give themselves better access to the window. Carter carefully lowered himself onto the platform, easing his weight onto it, to make sure it could take his weight, as LeBeau, being the smaller between them simply knelt on the concrete platform, leaning against the wall.

‘We open on the count of three, all right?”  Carter asked, the weight of this moment not lost on either of them. They had no idea what they were opening this window to find. Hogan could be unconscious, he could be conscious but delirious, and make so much noise that it draws the guard. There could be someone in there with him. There were literally a countless number of factors they hadn’t accounted for. This plan was laughed at by half-baked plans for its ridiculous reliance on luck. Yet here they were.

“Alright,” LeBeau nodded and inserted the tool through the gap, positioning it to lift the catch from the inside,

‘Three…two…one,” LeBeau slid the catch and opened the window in one quick motion, starting the stopwatch which he placed on the sill. Andrew dove into the room, sailing through the blackout curtain and coming to stand up in the room, his torch out and illuminating the scene before him.

Hogan, asleep on a massive four-poster bed, the smell of blood and decay, the laboured breaths of their commander, the complete lack of light except that which was coming from his torch. His brain registered all of this in less than five seconds, but he had already turned away, deciding if there was someone who was going to shoot him, in his current, extremely vulnerable state, he wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway,

“25 seconds!” LeBeau hissed from the ledge as Carter yanked up the blackout curtains and found the timer, ticking down to the right of the window. He hurriedly jammed the torch into his mouth and started dismantling the box as the timer continued ticking down,

_23.40_

He opened the box and took a moment to examine the wiring and was pleased to find it was of standard German engineering that he had been practising on all day

_18.75_

He worked to unplugged the C4 from the casing but it was still connected to the fuse

_10.45_

Carter reached into his belt to grab his cutter, but it slipped and hit the floor with a dull thud, taking his heart with it as fear spiked through him,

_5.25_

He could hear LeBeau’s anxious whisper-shouting, but he knew he had no time to do anything, so he acted on instinct,

_1.00_

And yanked a wire he was relatively sure led to the trip wire.

Then there was silence.

And then Carter realised he could still hear Hogan’s breathing, smell the foul stench of the room mixing with the frigid air, and he nearly whooped with joy as he looked up to meet LeBeau’s gaze with a triumphant smirk. LeBeau grinned and hopped lightly into the room, as Carter lowered himself onto the ground, trembling with the near-death experience, his head hanging between his legs as he tried to steady his breathing. And so it was LeBeau who was the first to fully examine Hogan’s room in the beam of his torchlight.

The corporal felt a growing rage as he looked at the blood, everywhere, clearly old and dried, on the carpet, on the bed, his anger and horror rocketing upwards in equal measures, as the light fell on Hogan. The colonel was tied down to the bed, his wrists, though mostly hidden by the ties, clearly a raw red from his struggles. There were a vast array of catheters and cannulas going into and out of the colonel and LeBeau felt nausea rising as he took tentative steps towards his commander, the colonel’s chest rising and falling rapidly, his eyes moving wildly beneath his closed eyelids. His skin was a horrid grey pallor, and veins were standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin on his arms.

His uniform was barely recognisable under the blood stains and tears, and it seemed much loser, as the man seemed to have lost weight, almost shrunk into himself. LeBeau felt tears welling up as the horror of what they must have done to his colonel hit him.

‘What the hell,” the quiet exclamation behind him, had LeBeau spinning into Kinch’s torchlight as the man clambered through, apparently having made his way up the climbing lines. Next to him Carter looked pale and shaky as he added his own torch to fully reveal the prone form of their commander.

Kinch took a deep breath and then instantly regretted it as the days of unwashed sheets entered his senses. He gagged and coughed, muffling it as much as he could, then gathered his thoughts, “those bastards will pay,” he said quietly, moving forward quickly, “but we have to move him now. LeBeau, get the harness,” he said, shining the light to the shelves and pleased to find a basic first aid kit there. He turned back around to see the Frenchman was still frozen. As much as he wanted to offer comfort, this situation would turn fatal if they didn’t move soon, ‘Corporal LeBeau!” he hissed and the Frenchman seemed to snap of out of it, “ready the harness, we’re taking him home,” the word home seemed to have awoken the corporal fully and he nodded, words seemingly beyond him at the moment. He walked over to Carter, who was physically trembling, to get the bags. He laid a gentle hand on his elbow to steer the sergeant into helping as well, and they had the full body harness ready to go in a matter of another ten minutes, all the while Kinch worked to remove the binds holding the Colonel down.

“Listen at the door,” Kinch then quietly ordered Carter, who nodded and walked with light steps to the door, pressing his ear against it, trying not to listen to the quiet sounds of pain behind him as Kinch was unhooking the colonel from the various lines and equipment. There was a louder groan as the drug line was removed, and Carter closed his eyes, willing his heart to beat at its normal pace, his mind to clear of the anger and disgust and horror, all aimed at the Gestapo.

Finally, Kinch, who had been kneeling on the bed, was done. His own breathing was irregular, unable to comprehend how anyone could do this to another human being, still more unable how anyone could do it to  _this_ human. This kind and compassionate man, this sterling leader, this brilliant strategist. Oh, they were going to make the Gestapo pay, alright. Kinch bandaged the last of the wounds and said,

“Alright, we’re ready, get the harness,” LeBeau hurried over the window, his own hands trembling as he brought it back to Kinch, and they somewhat clumsily managed to fit Hogan’s arms and legs through it, the man limp and silent now, his head lolling to the side. They tightened it at last and Kinch called to Carter, “come on, help us carry him,”

The Sergeant came over immediately and the three of them carried the Colonel as though he were made of glass, carefully moving him over to the window. All three were dismayed at how light he was, his collar bones showing through clearly through his dry and dirty skin. In silence, they attached him to the guide ropes, the storm outside now worse than ever. The little ledge Carter had put on earlier providing the perfect place to place most of his weight so he was suspended while doing as little damage to whatever wounds they couldn’t see on him at the moment, “get him down, and then let Rudolph and LeBeau carry him back to the van,” Kinch said and both Carter and LeBeau looked up in surprise, even as they attached themselves to the guide rope, carefully easing themselves under their precious load,

“Kinch?” Carter asked, but the man shook his head, the dangerous gleam in his eye almost invisible in the sleet that was now pounding against them. The senior sergeant took his jacket off and tucked I around Hogan’s shoulder’s strapping it onto the rope, “put that on him when you get down, and come back up Carter,” Kinch said again, and then walked back into the room.

The journey down was much easier and quicker, which was probably for the best given the state the colonel was in. Rudolph gasped as they brought the Colonel down and was quick to help to get him out of the harness,

“Carry him to the van,” Carter said, “can you two manage?”

Both LeBeau and Rudolph nodded, and started retracing the steps they had taken an hour ago, their previous tracks long since covered in the snow. Carter watched them go for a minute before beginning the climb back up, somehow reenergised despite the state they found their colonel in, because he sensed that Kinch had payback planned, and there was nothing on heaven or earth that was going to stop Carter from participating.

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t difficult to get the Colonel back to the van. Both Rudolph and LeBeau found every step lighter and easier to make because they had their colonel. He was alive and while not well, he would get better. This whole traumatic experience was just about over. So, despite the sleet, and the biting cold, and the pain in LeBeau’s back, Hogan was not a burden between them, but a source of energy, the reason they were out here in the first place.

They reached the van and opened the back door quickly, the doors banging open as a terrific gust of wind nearly bowled the two of them over, “Nearly there!” LeBeau shouted, and he and Rudolph heaved the Colonel up and into the van, laying him gently on the mat they had brought with them specifically for this purpose.

The man was still, unmoving but for the rising of his chest and the flickering behind his eyelids, but LeBeau’s heart was full, full of anguish for the suffering this man felt, full of joy that they had gotten him out of that hell hole, ‘I will inspect him for any further injuries!” LeBeau said, having to yell over the creaking and groaning of the van. Rudolph nodded,

“I will go back!” he replied and LeBeau frowned,

“Why?” the Frenchman asked,

“Because I believe your friend wants retribution for your colonel?” Rudolph asked but LeBeau had a feeling he already knew the answer. There was no chance they were going to let this go,

‘Yes,” LeBeau answered simply, as he removed the jacket and then what was left of the colonel’s shirt,

“Then I will help them,” Rudolph replied, before turning and leaving through the open doors, shutting them and the cold outside, leaving LeBeau with the task of caring for the man who truly never stopped caring for them. 

* * *

 

Rudolph hoisted himself up the ledge with his leg screaming in agony, to the sight of a gun barrel in his face, followed by a surprised, “what are you doing here?” he looked up and gratefully accepted a hand from a surprised Carter, taking in the unconscious guards on the floor and the room that was now lit,

“Thought I told you to go with LeBeau,” Kinch growled from his position on the floor, where he was working with the C4 Carter had removed from the window, dividing it, and rewiring it,

“I did and the Colonel is now safely in the van with your colleague. I thought I would come back and help you,” Rudolph answered, wincing as he stepped towards and sat down on the bed before his leg gave out and he ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Well then, tell us what you know about the weak points in the building,” Kinch replied, as Carter laid down the gun and moved to help the other sergeant,

“Weak points? Do you intend to demolish this whole building?” Rudolph asked, with a note of worry in his voice. Kinch paused in his activities to look up,

“Do you have a problem with that?” He asked, his tone dark and his voice loaded with a threat. Rudolph raised his hands in a placating manner,

“I ask only because what you are trying to accomplish is difficult, and dangerous, as it will involve going into the heart of HQ,” he said,

“Okay, tell us where,” Carter said, finality in his tone suggesting he also would broker no argument. Rudolph resigned himself to accepting that these men were not going to listen, no matter how suicidal their plan seemed,

“One you can put on the pillar in the stairwell, plant one bomb in the basement room, as when you walk in the second door on the right there is a gas tank and you could plant one there. The third bomb you could place on the first floor, in the lobby, where there is a large marble pillar that holds up most of the building, if what we were told in basic emergency evacuations and procedures is correct,” Rudolph supplied and Kinch grinned at him,

“Perfect,” he said, “three bombs, three locations, which is the hardest to get to?”

“The lobby, even at this hour it will be packed,”

“Very well, I shall go there,” Kinch said and here Rudolph had to put his foot down,

“No Kinchloe,” he said and the Kinch raised an eyebrow, “I am from here, they will not question me,”

“You’re meant to be on leave, how are you going to explain being back?”

“I will go out the window and make my way around to the front, enter through there, say I forgot something, and needed to come back. My rooms are on the first floor anyway, so I can hurry in, grab my things, plant the bomb, activate it and be away. They will not suspect me,”

Kinch considered for a moment, “Very well, start going now, we’re done here,” he handed Rudolph the bomb and turned to Carter, “you put one on the main brace in the stairwell,” he ordered and carter nodded, picking up his own C4,

“And you will go to the basement?” Rudolph asked, and Kinch nodded solemnly,

“I will, what is the guard presence like?”

“There will be no one in the basement, as long as you meet no one on the stairwell going down, you will be fine,” Rudolph looked at the demo,

“How long is the charge set for?” he looked to Carter,

“Once you flick the red switch, we’ll have fifteen minutes to get out,” the sergeant replied, “so once you get to your target area, Kinch you’ll have to wait five minutes to give Rudolph enough time to get into position,” Carter turned to the German,

“Is that enough time?”

“It is, I know exactly where to drop this charge,”

“Good,” Carted nodded,

“Where shall we meet when we are done?” Rudolph asked,

“Back at the van, plant your charge and get out of this building,” Kinch replied, while moving the bodies of the gestapo men they took out earlier, while LeBeau and Rudolph were taking the Colonel to the van. He put them on the side of the bed away from the door and picked up one of the rifles they had carried with them, throwing the other one to carter,

“Set the charge, Carter, come back here and head straight back to the Van. Rudolph, I gather you’ll be able to leave through the front door?”

“Yeah I will be,” Rudolph nodded, shimmying out of his climbing gear, the overalls he has on under good enough to pass as a civilian pair. He reached down and picked up his C4 charge, smaller than the others, and slipped it into his pocket,

“This will be enough to bring down the building?” Carter asked, sounding apprehensive,

“Yes,” Rudolph nodded, assurance woven into his tone, “we are targeting the weakest spots”

“Let’s not waste any more time then gentlemen,” Kinch said, making eye contact with each of them, before nodding and leading the way out into the comparatively bright corridor. Rudolph nodded and wished them luck, turning back to the window to make his way down and around to the front.

Turning towards the door behind them, and checking that the rifles they had picked up were locked and loaded, Kinch watched Rudolph climb out of the window before turning and shutting the door, locking himself and Carter out in the hallway. He took point as he and Carter headed for the main stairwell. Their footsteps were muffled on the carpet below them, and the light cast their shadows in multiple directions as they neared their destination. They stopped just before it, and Kinch edged the door open, listening for any footsteps,

“All clear,” he whispered after he was satisfied, and opened the door fully, keeping the door open to allow Carter admittance, their footsteps soft on the cement. Kinch closed the door and nodded to the pillar in front of them, “plant here Carter,” he said and the young man nodded. Just as Kinch was about to make for the stairs leading down to the basement, Carter threw his arm around Kinch, and hugged him,

“Good luck, brother,” he said, pulling away but kept in place by Kinch’s hand on his shoulder, a real smile gracing the other sergeant’s face for what felt like the first time that day,

“And to you,” Kinch tightened his grip on Carter’s shoulder, “brother,”

With that Kinch turned away and hurried down the stairs, the darkness swallowing him up as Carter set the explosive in as an unobtrusive place as possible and settled down to wait the ten minutes for Kinch and Rudolph to reach their positions.

Kinch continued down the stairwell as light footed and as quickly as he could. The cold radiated from the cement and enveloped him, but he was powered but righteous anger as he slinked his way downstairs. It took him another minute to arrive on the basement level, and as he poked his head out cautiously from the stairwell into the basement corridor, he was pleased to see that Rudolph was right. With a determined smile, he made his way to the second door on the right as instructed.

Above him, on the ground floor Rudolph panted as he arrived at the front of the HQ, have fought his way through the snow. He spotted his friends on duty and called out a greeting to them. They raised their rifles in confusion before they realised who it was and shouted a greeting back, grabbing Rudolph’s arm to help him through the door,

 _“What are you doing out here?”_   the first asked,

 _“I forgot the present I got for Mama, so I thought I would take it to her,”_  Rudolph replied, laughing with a joviality he didn’t feel as the bomb weight heavy in his pocket.

He was allowed in, every footstep he took feeling heavy and sluggish as the reality of what he was about to do hit him. He knew the gestapo needed to be taken down. But he had somehow forgotten that there were real, decent people who were going to die the minute these bombs went off along with the people who did what they did to Hogan. He walked in a mild haze up to his room and grabbed the first thing he saw before turning around. He slipped his hand into his pocket feeling the sticky C4 cling to his skin. For a moment his mind flashed back to the day he was taken from his family, dragged into a war he barely understood and didn’t want to fight.  _They forced your hand_ he thought, but it didn’t stop the guilt that washed over him as he made his way back downstairs. He felt the switch in his pocket, the switch that would turn the timer on. As he appeared back in the lobby, he spotted the vase standing conveniently in front of his target pillar. To the right was a man whose wife had just had a baby. At the front desk was another man who was two months away from being rotated home permanently to his wife and children. Rudolph felt every breath weighing on his chest as he thumbed the switch and eased the small block of plastic out of his pocket, keeping his gait steady. His heart was in his mouth he dropped the C4 into the vase with a quiet  _plink_  and kept walking, the voice of his former comrades echoing loudly in his mind. Like a vacuum seal being removed Rudolph forced himself to breathe again and walked out the front door, doing his very best not to look back.

Crouching next to the gas tank, Kinch set the fuse and gave up stealth for speed as he hurried up the stairs, heading back to the third floor, fully ready to shoot anything that got in his way. He emerged on the floor and sprinted back to Hogan’s room, not sure why he felt the need to run as fast as he did, but knowing he could not stand to be in this building a moment longer. He burst into the Colonel’s old room and simultaneously slung the rifle around his shoulders, before he shut the door behind him. He made his way to the window and hooked himself up to the line, as the snow soaked him thoroughly, now turning into heavy rain. He winced at the pain of its contact with his body but winched himself down as quickly as he could. Taking a breath of fresh air in, Kinch forced himself not to analyse anything that had happened tonight, but instead, headed back to their rendezvous point. They had a Colonel to get home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is still reading this after the hella long break i love you forever <3 forgive my long breaks, but as promised not abandoned, because you guys matter to me, but also I couldnt leave our favourite characters either. We're getting real close to the end now, thank you for sticking it out!!


End file.
